


Looking for Heaven, Found the Devil in Me

by ReaperWriter



Series: These Lines Across My Face [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, F/F, Found Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, Healing, M/M, Team as Family, Trauma, surprise reunions, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: “Shit!” Nile sat up, panting hard. Five months, two weeks, and three days since she’d bled out on the floor of a house in Helmand. Since she’d risen and become an immortal. Since the dreams began. She’d dreamed of the others until she met them. She still dreamed of Quýnh off and on, though it had been a couple weeks. Nicky told her that Booker had dreamed of their lost sister off and on for years.But this face was new.***When Gwyn suddenly appears in Nile's dreams, the team journeys to Seattle to find out what happened to her in Paris all those years ago and why she's reappeared now.It's not a pretty story.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: These Lines Across My Face [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852702
Comments: 17
Kudos: 76





	1. Regrets Collect Like Old Friends

**Author's Note:**

> TWs:   
> Chapter one features characters experiencing Black Lives Matter protests. I have chosen to keep these in because I believe they would have happened with or without the ongoing COVID crisis.
> 
> In the interest of sparing all of us, COVID-19 is not appearing in this story. That I feel we all needed a break from. 
> 
> Chapter two references sexual assault. The assault happens off screen, but the effects are discussed. Please take care of yourself and skip this one if you need to. I'll try to post a not at the end that timeline's Gwyn time away if you want to skip to and read that.

_Anger. Crowds chanting. Police in riot gear. So much noise._

_A woman stands in the line, half her head shaved in a buzz like Jay’s, the other a wild mix of streaks of acid green and a natural reddish brown, some in small braids and the rest in wild curls. A loose red dress hangs above torn leggings and black shitkicker boots. A black bandanna covering the lower half of her face._

_The police push forward._

_The woman screams, “WHITE BODIES TO THE FRONT!”_

_From the police line, a blast fires into the crowd._

“Shit!” Nile sat up, panting hard. Five months, two weeks, and three days since she’d bled out on the floor of a house in Helmand. Since she’d risen and become an immortal. Since the dreams began. She’d dreamed of the others until she met them. She still dreamed of Quỳnh off and on, though it had been a couple weeks. Nicky told her that Booker had dreamed of their lost sister off and on for years.

But this face was new. 

Stumbling out of bed and into the hall, she considered her options. Their current digs were in Sydney, an easy hop from the job they’d just done in Myanmar, extracting a couple of political prisoners. If she went left toward the back master bedroom, she risked walking in on Joe and Nicky in a potential state of undress and in the middle of making love. If she went right, Andy was in the front bedroom. 

Would Andy have the dreams anymore? She’d dreamt of Nile, but her healing had slowed after that. And this last job she’d run mostly from the sidelines, and been quietly furious about it. Andy needed more down time than the rest of them. If she woke Andy, it would be like poking a hibernating bear who needed a root canal.

Joe and Nicky it was.

She padded carefully down the hall and then knocked on the door. No sense getting shot if the dream hadn’t fully woken them. Or seeing Nicky’s ass. Again. “Guys?”

“Nile?” Nicky’s voice sounded muzzy with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

“You have clothes on?”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming in.” She pushed the door open, finding Nicky tucking his gun back under his pillow and Joe burying his face into Nicky’s shoulder. Light from the moon and the streetlights outside filtered in from the curtains. “Did that not wake you?”

“What?” Nicky asked, more alert and sitting up.

“The dream. The new woman.” She paused, closing her eyes for a moment. The bang of the gunshot echoed in her mind. Opening them again, she searched Nicky’s face. “There’s another of us.” 

“No there’s not,” Joe muttered. “You had a bad dream. Go back to sleep.”

“I saw her,” Nile insisted. “Did you not?”

“What did she look like?” Nicky asked. “Was she...was she Asian?”

“No.” Nile shook her head. “No, it wasn't Quỳnh. She looked white. American, I think.”

Nicky frowned. “We saw nothing, Nile.”

She blinked. “What does that mean?” A sudden, horrifying thought took hold. “Wait, you two aren’t...not like Andy?”

At that, Joe shook himself and sat up. “Nile, you saw us heal a few days ago. We are fine. But we didn’t share this dream with you. Perhaps it is just a bad dream from the American news.”

Nile swallowed. She’d been watching news of the growing protests in her downtime, watching it spread closer to Chicago. Worrying. “Maybe. I guess.”

“Go back to sleep. Rest.” Nicky smiled softly at her. “We’ll talk to Andy in the morning.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Nicky said. “Good night, Nile.”

Backing out of the room, Nile closed the door and made her way back to her own bed. It took hours to get back to sleep.

That first conversation with Andy proved fruitless. She also hadn’t shared the dream, and chalked it up to Nile’s unease at America’s continually devolving situation. “If it gets really bad, we’ll make Copley figure out a way to get your family out,” Andy said. “And we’ll go in if we have to.”

“Yeah,” Nile muttered over breakfast. The dream nagged at her, the woman’s hoarse yell, the acid green of her hair. But if the others hadn’t seen it, she couldn’t be someone new. Maybe they were right. Something she’d seen on a live feed. “Okay.”

Three days later, after an early morning ten klick run, followed by having her ass handed to her by Andy, Joe, and Nicky in turn, Nile collapsed in the hammock strung up in the backyard of the house for a nap in the shade before lunch.

_Tear gas, thick as arctic fog off Lake Michigan, rolled through the streets. People screamed and coughed, eyes burning._

_The woman stumbled, the bandana around her nose and mouth helping a little. Then she heard the shriek down the side alley. The plastic of the camera clipped to her tank top pressed against her skin as she turned with almost military precision._

_“Manvir, are you still getting my feed? I’m going in!” she shouted into the Bluetooth in her ear._

_“I’ve got you, G.”_

_“Put me on fifteen second delay.”_

_“G?”_

_“Do it.”_

_Down the alley, out of the worst of the smoke, a skinny black girl who couldn’t be more than fifteen cowered before a cop twice her size, her hair half coming out of the Bantu knots she’d had it up in. Tears streamed down her face as the cop shook her hard by the arm._

_“HEY!” yelled the woman. The cop turned, dropping the girl’s arm. “She’s a child. Let her go.”_

_“She’s a fucking rioter.”_

_“No one was rioting. You assholes fired on us.”_

_“Take off, you fucking bitch, this doesn’t concern you.”_

_“I’m filming you. This is streaming live. That is a child. Leave her alone. I want your name and badge number. I am reporting you to the city for unnecessary brutality.”_

_The cop’s face shifted from angry to murderous. He pulled out his baton, advancing on the woman. “You’re filming me? You’re fucking filming me, you bleeding heart commie trash?”_

_The woman caught the girl’s eye as the cop raised the baton to swing at her. “Run!”_

_The girl ran like a jackrabbit out of the alley._

_The baton came down, but instead of shattering the camera, the woman caught it, twisting it in hands gloved in motorcycle gloves until it wrenched out of the officer’s grip. She hauled off and threw it down the alley._

_“Wipe the last fifteen seconds and cut the feed, Manny.”_

_“But…”_

_“NOW.”_

_Then the cop swung his fist at her and it was on._

Nile crashed to the ground under the hammock, yelling in pain. Her arm had caught in the webbing and her shoulder dislocated itself. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!”

“Nile!” Joe raced into the yard and watched as Nile’s arm slotted itself back into place. 

“That never sucks less, does it?” she muttered, climbing up and dusting herself off.

“Never.” Joe reached out a hand, tentatively checking her over. “What happened?”

“Okay, seriously, were you all awake just now?”

“Yes.” Joe blinked. “Another dream? The same woman?”

“Maybe I’m going crazy,” Nile ground out through the last of the pain. She rubbed a hand down her face, shaking flashes of green hair and motorcycle gloves out of her vision. “Whatever.” Turning, she stalked inside.

The night, while the others sat watching a soccer-excuse Nile-football game, Nile sat in an armchair with the upgraded, secure laptop Copley provided, replacing Booker’s hand me down. She’d started by nosing around on Facebook from a dummy account, looking for someone named Manvir or Manny live streaming protests. Then she’d tried Instagram. Twitter. Tumblr. Twitch. Discord. Manvir gave her no hits. Manny too many. Eventually, she switched to making a list of the major cities experiencing protests and then going through jail bookings. She started with Louisville and Minneapolis, but no women who matched her memories had been booked through in “riot” or protest related charges.

Of course, the news chatter she’s hearing was that at least some protesters were being picked up, held, and then released without formal booking. If that’s the case, she was fucked. Or she’d just made shit up. Could go either way.

Nothing in Los Angeles. San Francisco. Chicago. New York. Portland.

And then, in Seattle.

Oh, fuck.

The woman looking back at her on the screen looked nothing like they’d described her. No nun’s veil here. No face of sweet serenity. But it’s the face from her dreams, hair half shaved and half techno-punk dryad. Nile had missed the the brown eyes, world weary and a little broken, but a fire still burned in them, even in the shitty booking picture . An ear cuff spiraled down from the ear on the shaved side of her head, and a funky copper pendant hung on a leather thong around her neck.

Next to the mugshot was a name- Gwyneth Rhys-Jones. And a charge- Resisting Arrest.

She’d done more than resist in Nile’s dream. Vision. Whatever. Maybe the cop had freaked out when she’d taken a punch and just laughed at him. Maybe she’d kicked his ass. What had happened to the pacifist who made Andromache so incensed once upon a thousand lifetimes ago?

“Guys.”

“Un momento, Nile,” Nicky called. “It is the last three minutes.”

“This is important.”

“So is this game,” Andy argued, taking a slug of vodka from the bottle.

“I promise this is more important.”

“Nothing is more important than football between missions, Nile,” Joe tutted. “I know this is not your American women’s team, but…”

“I found Gwyn.”

Andy’s vodka bottle didn’t shatter when it hit the floor, but it did liberally soak the godawful shag rug on the living room floor.

“That’s not funny, Nile,” Andy said, voice hard as steel. “That’s not something you joke about.”

Nile flipped the laptop into tablet mode and screen locked it, then handed to her. “If I’m lying, I’m dying.”

“Nile,” Joe hissed.

Andy took the tablet and stared at it in silence for more than the three minutes left in the game. One team scored, the goal song played, a win was declared. In the living room, time stood still. 

Then Andy stood up, shoved the tablet into Nicky’s hands, and stormed out of the room. A few minutes later, the front door slammed, and the motorbike she’d been riding roared to life.

Joe rose, picking up the half spilled vodka and going to the kitchen to put it away in the ice box and fetch a towel. Nicky held the tablet like a live grenade, scanning the information over twice before letting out a long, pained sound.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I...It’s been over two hundred years. And this hair. Santo Dio!” He looked up as Joe returned, tossing Nile the towel and holding out his hand. Nicky passed him the device and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Joe looked for barely a moment. “It’s her. You can change hair, but not the bone structure of her face.” He frowned. “But her eyes. Shit, what’s happened to her?”

“This is insane,” Nicky countered. He turned to Nile. “Before the other night, you had not seen her before in your dream, had you?”

“No. Just you three, Booker, and…”

“And Quỳnh,” Joe finished for her. “And Booker never spoke of her. Only of the woman in the sea. For a little while, we wondered if maybe there were two, if the same fate somehow befell Gwyn. But he was sure it was the same woman.”

Nicky rose off the couch, pacing like a cheetah across the floor.

“So she just vanishes for what? Two hundred twenty something years with no trace and reappears in Seattle?” Nile asked.

“Can you do the thing with that?” Nicky asked, waving a hand at the tablet.

“Can I run background on her before Andy comes home from wherever she just went pissed off and hurt? Yes.” She looked between them. “Are you two going to go fuck out your emotions?”

Joe rolled his eyes. “We do not…”

“You absolutely do,” Nile cut in, a smile lighting her face. “And that’s okay. Endearing, even. I just need to know if I need my noise cancelling headphones and to stay in the living room while you do it.”

“Yes,” Nicky sighed. “Or at least talk. We need to talk and…”

“Copy that.” She stood up, heading for her room, then turned to them. “For the record, I am sorry. I feel like I keep blowing up your lives.”

“You don’t,” Joe said, stepping in and giving her a quick hug. “Destiny is sometimes a bastard. You’re just on that ride with us now.”

“Lucky me.” Nile pulled away, heading her bedroom. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you, truly,” Nicky called as he and Joe passed her heading for theirs. 

Nile grabbed her headphones and made a beeline for the living room. Time to get to work.

***

By the time Andy came home in the early hours of morning, Nile, with the help of a late night secure line call to Copley, had managed a basic dossier on Gwyneth Rhys-Jones. According to her surface level documents, Ms. Rhys-Jones was 23, the only child of Welsh emigres, a doctor and an engineer who had died in a car accident when she was in her last year of high school, a recent graduate of Evergreen State College, and working as a progressive causes get out the vote activist in Seattle.

With Copley's help, they’d scraped back the veneer. Whoever had done her papers had done an exceptional job. Gwyneth Rhys-Jones hadn’t existed before starting school at Evergreen. All her high school records, family background, everything, was a forgery of a level that looked Company quality. She just poofed into existence. 

The existence of another immortal to chase down a rabbit hole probably absolved Nile of having to buy Copley Christmas present, ever. He promised to try to track Gwyn backwards in time. Nile focused on going forward.

She’d been a good student at Evergreen, done well enough to be liked and mentioned in her department’s bulletin from time to time but not so outstanding as to be a graduation speaker or awarded major attention getting scholarships. Double majored in Law and Public Policy and Leadership Studies. Noted in her senior yearbook profile an ambition to pursue social justice work before continuing her education. She had no prior criminal record. No apparent significant others, though she’d been a strong supporter of the campus LGBTQIA student center, appearing more than once on their Facebook page.

Her present employers in Seattle worked with getting out the vote in under-served communities of color. An address with the DMV listed a detached mother-in-law unit in Beacon Hill. She had no Facebook or Instagram, but a Twitter Handle for @TheOriginalGJR retweeted about progressive politics, immigrant rights, queer rights, women’s rights, and social justice. The avatar was a stylized red dragon and a green and white background.

Most recently, the tweets centered on the Black Lives Matter protests in the city and featured snippets of live streams from a Twitch account from someone called the WizardofVir. 

All in all, it showed a woman living in one place, with a fixed identity, and mortal friends, putting herself in positions that left traces of her on the internet. 

Nile had a mug of coffee ready, set the report down for Andy to read, and then stepped as far back out of blast radius as possible. An hour later, Andy pushed the tablet away and rubbed at her temples. “This should be impossible.”

“I know,” Nile said, refilling her coffee for her.

“The dreams have been consistent for millennia. New immortals dream of us. All of us.”

Nile kept quiet, no idea what to say.

Andy picked up the mug, chugging the scalding liquid. Then set it down. “Seattle.”

“Seattle.”

“She’s stayed away all this time.” Andy glanced into the doorway where Joe and Nicky now stood in t-shirts and sweatpants, their hair sleep tousled. “Why the fuck would she do that?”

“We don’t know what happened to her in France,” Nicky said. “If she was beheaded and...recovered, maybe it left damage. Maybe she doesn’t remember us. Doesn’t dream herself anymore. Maybe she’s been alone all this time with no way to find us.”

“Or she was angry we didn’t come and she walked away. She always had her...oddities.” Andy grimaced, the closest she’d ever come to acknowledging that maybe there really was something to Gwyn’s visions. “Maybe she doesn’t want us anymore.”

“Look at her eyes, boss,” Joe said. “It’s more than that. You know it is.”

“Seems to me,” Nile said calmly from her place leaning against the kitchen counter, “that you can either wonder about it for the rest of your lives, which could be a very long time, or you can go ask her. One way sounds like a good way to drive yourselves and me nuts, because I’m the one dreaming about her.”

She didn’t add, ‘And maybe Booker is now too.’

“Fuck,” Andy muttered. Turning to Nile, she asked, “How soon could we get to Seattle?”

“Direct or discrete?”

“Direct?”

“There’s a Quantas Air flight leaving in about seven hours that I can get us on if we pack quickly. The swords can probably go through checked luggage. Nicky’s rifle…”

“Discrete?”

“Copely has a contact with a private jet who can fly us into Boeing’s private airfield there, but we’d leave tomorrow, get there the day after. No problem bringing all our gear.”

Andy tapped her fingers. Finally, she sighed. “Discrete. Make it happen.”

Nile nodded, more than a little relieved. “Can do.”

***

Nile still didn’t entirely trust Copely, for all he’d become their greatest fanboy. But damn, the man made things convenient. A nondescript black Subaru SUV waited for them at the airfield. In the glove box were keys to a rental house and another motorbike for Andy not far from the address of Gwyneth Rhys-Jones’s place. 

“Showers?” Nile asked.

The other three looked at her stony eyed.

“Look, I know I am the baby or whatever. But we’ve been on a plane for over twenty hours.” Nile held up her first finger. “A very nice plane, admittedly. But no shower on it. We all smell like travel funk.” Second finger. “I desperately need to brush my teeth.” Third finger. “Whatever happened to this woman, chances are, showing up with bad hygiene isn’t going to improve the situation. So, showers, coffee, then we go find her, okay?”

“Fast showers.” Andy’s tone brooked no arguments.

“Marine,” Nile shot back.

“Fine.”

“Good.”

It took little time to get to the rental and even less to clean up. A pissed off Andy was a powerful motivator and she’d been pissed off since Nile interrupted their football game with her bombshell. Nile didn’t take it personally. But she also wasn’t willing to make herself a target.

Within an hour, Nile had pulled through a local espresso hut drive through and was navigating to the address from the DMV. It was a first stop, but since it was a Saturday and only about 1PM, Nile hoped they’d catch Gwyn at home. Assuming the protests weren’t running all day today. From her research, they seemed to start mostly in the last afternoons.

She parked up the street a little, cutting the engine, then glanced at the others. “Three houses back on the right. It’s the mother-in-law house at the back of the driveway.”

“Right.” Andy pulled out a gun, checked it, and then tucked it into her waistband under her shirt. “Let’s go.”

Nile raised an eyebrow. “Are we expecting a fire fight?”

“I pretty much always do.” Andy got out of the car and started up the street.

She glanced at Nicky and Joe, who shrugged and opened their own doors, following the leader. Nile blew out an exasperated sigh and followed, locking the car behind her.

By the time she caught up, Andy, Nicky, and Joe had made it to the door of the little house. Andy raised her fist to knock, but the door swung open. And there she stood. The face that haunted Nile’s dreams. The face from the file. The acid green hair glowed even more electric neon in person. The haunted look in her eyes echoed even deeper. 

She looked at each of them and sighed. In a flawless American accent, she said, “I figured you’d show up sooner or later.” Then she turned and walked back into the house, leaving the door open behind her. 

Nicky, Joe, and Andy stood there frozen like statues, staring after her. Finally, Nile slid around them and into the house. The door opened into a small kitchen and the woman stood at the counter, stirring a big glass pitcher with lemons and ice floating in it. Five glasses stood next to it. Nile moved slowly across the tile floor to stand next to the woman. “Hi. I’m Nile. Nile Freeman.”

“I know.” The woman...girl...she looked younger than Nile in so many ways until you saw her eyes, looked over and gave her a tired smile. Especially in the Jack Skellington pajama pants and Evergreen College over-sized t-shirt. “You’ve been in my dreams for a while now. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You dreamed about me?”

“Yes.” She turned her head back toward the door and the others. “I don’t have air conditioning for you to let out, but if you three could come in and shut that before all the mosquitoes fly in, I’d be obliged.”

Something in the way she said it changed the cadence of her speech, her American accent slipping into something older, more lush. 

Nicky and Joe slipped in, followed by Andy, who slammed the door a little harder than necessary. 

Gwyn’s attention turned back to the counter, pouring lemonade into glasses and glancing at Nile. “Can you grab one of these and that plate with the towel over it?”

Nile took a glass and picked up the plate, then watched as Gwyn did this magic trick with her hands, picking up the other four glasses and leading her through to a small living room decorated in a mix of IKEA and thrift store chic. She set the glasses on the table, nodding the Nile to keep hers once she’d set down the plate. Then she stood in front of an odd item against the staircase wall leading up to the second level and waved the four of them to the more traditional sofa and chair.

“Is that...a camel saddle?” Joe asked, squinting at the thing. 

Gwyn crossed her arms. “I found it at Goodwill. It brought back good memories. Sit. You must have questions.”

Nicky started to step forward to her. “Gwyn, mia sorella.”

Gwyn held up a hand. “Nico, no. Please.”

Nicky froze. “Mi dispiace.”

“No, mi dispiace,” Gwyn replied, taking a shuddering breath. “Non posso.”

Nile looked between them, then reached out and took Nicky’s arm, pulling him back toward the couch and Joe. “Sit,” she said softly. “You too, Andy.”

Then she pulled the tea towel off the plate. Baklava, Basbousa, Halva, Maamoul, Assabeh Tamr, and Kaak Luz stared back at them. 

Andy snapped. “Are you kidding? I am not playing this fucking game with you, Gwyn.”

Gwyn sank down onto the camel saddle like a puppet with her strings cut. “I don’t intend to play games, Andromache. Everything on that platter comes from a Jordanian owned bakery in West Seattle. I’m pretty sure the Baklava is pistachio and walnut with simple syrup, but I haven’t actually tried it. I didn’t fucking buy it. It was all a gift for my birthday three days ago.”

“You remember when your birthday is?” Nile stared at the woman, amazed.

“No, but the person who gave me a spotless fake identity picked one out for me, and my co-worker Nadja’s parents own a bakery. Mortal co-workers care about those sorts of things.” Gwyn’s head dropped back against the wall, her eyes closing for a long moment. “Look, I’ve got a protest to be at in about three hours. I need to gear up and I have to stop and get more supplies for the medics. If you want to just scream at me now, Andromache, please get it over with. Otherwise, you can either come with me, or I can come to you in the morning, assuming I’m not in jail. Again.”

Andromache glowered at her. “So you’re just going to walk out on us again?”

“I’m going to go protect people.” Gwyn levered herself up from her seat. “That’s the gig, right? I need to change clothes. Make your minds up before I’m back down.”

She turned the tight corner and headed up the stairs.

Silence reigned for a long moment before Nicky muttered, “Oh, Gwyn.”

“Oh, Gwyn, my ass.” Andy stood up. “She remembered us just fine. And she abandoned us.”

“And we don’t know why,” Nicky shot back. “We need to know why before we write off all those years.”

“Whatever.” Andy looked at Nile. “Are you coming back to the house?”

Nile looked between her the stairs. “Maybe we should go with her. Aren’t we supposed to help? Shield people?”

“You’ve seen how many cameras are at these things. Copely will have kittens.”

“It is what he’s supposed to be doing,” Joe added mildly, sipping his lemonade and eating a piece of halva. “Wiping up our tracks. His penance.”

“Unbelievable,” Andy muttered. “I’m going back to the house.”

Nile dug into her pocket, tossing Andy the SUV keys. “Take the car if you want. We’ll go with Gwyn. Take an UBER back.”

“Don’t get arrested.” Andy growled. Then she stormed out.

Gwyn came back down fifteen minutes later in cargo khakis, an olive tank top over a sports bra, and the same pair of Doc Martens. She stopped, staring at the three of them. “She’s gone then?”

“She went back to the rental.” Joe looked at Nicky for a long moment before continuing. “Fatima, my sister, Andromache is…”

“Mortal.” Gwyn rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I felt it. When I started to dream of Nile. It’s why I.” She stopped speaking suddenly. 

“Gwyn…”

She cut him off, turning to Nile. “Why did you three stay?”

“You said we could come with you, right?”

“You can. But I’m only explaining the big things once, and Andromache deserves to hear that.” She turned, pulling open a closet and digging out a backpack. “Are you three familiar with non-violent protest rules of engagement?”

“Your run in with the cop in that alley didn’t look non-violent,” Nile pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

“What cop?” Nicky asked in the same instant Joe said, “What run in?”

“You dreamed that, huh?” Gwyn paused, and for the first time since she opened the door, a look of genuine amusement flashed on her face. “Occasionally, rules get broken. But overall, we don’t directly engage the police. No throwing shit at them. No laser pointers. No property damage.”

As she spoke, she turned back into the closet, pulling out another bag and digging things free. She passed plain black bandannas to each of them, then tinted ballistics glasses, and finally unmarked ball caps. “Your clothes are good, no logos, but a lot of people are going to be live streaming, including me. Keep these on. Especially the glasses. The cops have been firing a lot of flash bangs and rubber bullets into the crowds.”

“We’d heal,” Joe pointed out, tucking his hair under the hat. 

“And then you’ll be memorable. Our job is to be numbers on the ground and to protect and amplify the voices of the Black protesters. Not distract from it. If you can do that, you can come,” Gwyn said, pulling on a light tactical jacket. She moved past Joe to a small charging port in the corner, picking up one of a row of identical small cameras and clipping it onto a loop on the jacket. “If you can’t, I’ll call you a cab.”

“We can follow your lead.” Nile tilted her head a little. “Though I might raise my voice a little.”

“That’s fair.” That actually got a small chuckle. “Did you eat any more of the sweets?”

“No. Joe found Tupperware and put them away.”

Gwyn raised an eyebrow. “Have you eaten anything else since you landed?”

“Coffee.” Nile glanced at Joe and Nicky, but they seemed willing to let her lead the conversation. “Nothing else yet.”

“Coffee isn’t food.” Then she stopped. “Someone is going to take away my Seattle-ite card for that. Do you eat meat? Beef, cheese, bread?” 

“Like burgers? Yeah.”

“Good.”

Outside, Gwyn led them to a silver Subaru older and more beat up then theirs. Joe glanced in the back. “Are those...shields?”

“Of a kind. Barrel plastic with pool noodle edging. Helps block those projectiles I mentioned.”

“How bad are things here?” Nicky asked, aghast. 

Gwyn stopped, glancing at them. “Bad. Have been for a while.” Nodding to the car, she unlocked it and tossed her backpack into the middle of the back seat. “Get in.”

They rode to their first stop in silence. At least until they pulled in and Nile saw the sign, bursting out laughing. “Dick’s? Really?”

“If locals tell you to eat a bag of Dicks here, it’s a compliment. How hungry are you all? And chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla milkshakes?”

Gwyn told Joe and Nicky to wait in the backseat with the windows down, taking Nile with her. She ordered in some kind of shorthand. “Sixteen cheese, four fries, four chocolate, two vanilla, two strawberry, and a roundup, please!” Then she paid in cash and stepped to the side to wait.

“They’ve missed you, you know,” Nile said mildly, turning with her to look out at the bit of Puget Sound visible from the parking lot. “They mourned.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for it.” Gwyn didn’t look at Nile, keeping her own eyes on the view. “I’ll give them the best explanation I can. What they choose to do with it will be up to them.”

She reached up, fingering the necklace at her throat, something old and bronze and stamped with an archaic looking crucifix. 

“Nicky give you that?”

Gwyn laughed again, but the sound was more melancholy than it had been back at the house. “You’re perceptive, Nile. That’s good. You’ll need that in this life.”

“Ton of food to go!” Called the guy at the window.

They ate as Gwyn drove, sucking on her own strawberry milkshake. As they pulled into a Costco, she pulled out a Bluetooth and tucked it into her ear, actuating it. “Call Manny.”

“Who…?” Joe started to ask, but Gwyn waved him off. 

“Hey, it’s me. Yeah, supply run. Can you make sure the Cindy visa is on? Probably for at least $700.” Gwyn paused. “You’re my rock star. Thanks, love. I’ll call when we get there. Bye.”

“Manny?” Nicky asked.

“He’s a friend.”

“The Cindy Visa?” Nile raised an eyebrow.

“We’re concerned they may be tracking and flagging purchases that look like protester supplies. Cindy is an alternate ID. Her address is a lovely vacant lot out in Enumclaw.”

“An alternate ID?” Nile’s tone remained even, but she could see Joe leaning forward from the back seat.

“I assume you all have them,” Gwyn replied easily, pulling into the parking lot.

“Others don’t know about them,” Joe replied.

“That’s not wholly true anymore though, is it?” Gwyn parked the car. “Let’s go.”

The next forty five minutes were more strenuous than some forced marches Nile had done in the Corps. Gwyn ordered Nicky and Joe to man one of the flat dollies while she grabbed an over-sized cart. They started back in the bottled drink section, loading pallets of water and sports drinks, then grabbed paper towels, baby wipers, and trash bags. From there, she moved them forward into the snack section, loading multi-packs of power bars, fruit leather, trail mix, and other easy grab and go food. Finally, she had the guys follow her to the pharmacy section where she loaded up on eye wash, bandages, gauze, medic tape, rubber gloves, antiseptic, cold packs, and a few full stock first aid kits.

She paid, getting them all fountain drinks to wash down the remains of lunch, and then they loaded the car. 

“So Manny made your fake ID?” Joe asked, forcing a return to the earlier conversation.

Gwyn sighed as she started the car. “Yes.”

“Does he know that you’re...one of us?” Nile asked, fidgeting with the straw on her drink.

“He does.” Gwyn didn’t offer any more details, keeping her eyes on the traffic trying to exit the Costco parking lot.

Joe cursed in florid Arabic. “Dammit, mortals knowing about us almost got us turned into lab rats. How do we know your Manny…”

“Manvir.”

“He’s Sikh?” Nicky interjected, interested.

“Yes.”

Joe returned to his question like a bloodhound on the scent of a clue. “How do we know your Manvir didn’t cause the leak that started that trail?”

“One, because Manvir has heard stories of you, but I told him I’d lost you all several lifetimes ago, and I think he assumed you'd died.” She paused, signaling and pulling onto an entrance ramp for the freeway. “And two, it wasn’t so acrimonious an end to our marriage that he’d do such a thing.”

“Marriage?!” Joe shouted, leaning forward between Gwyn and Nile’s seats.

“Aren’t you married to Jesus?” Nile asked, confused.

“Yes,” Gwyn confirmed, merging into traffic.

“Isn’t that, I don’t know, bigamous?”

“Only in some cultures.”

“Gwyn.” Nicky’s sigh sounded every one of his nearly 1000 years. “You married someone?”

“Not how you’re thinking.”

****

2001

The skies above Boston were eerie in their silence, flight traffic still grounded 48 hours after it happened. Gwyn had been in court that morning, sitting in a side room conferring with a client about a pre-trial plea when a bailiff stuck his head in to get her and tell her court was cancelled. 

Everything was cancelled.

It was still cancelled. The nation, the whole world it seemed had frozen in shock since the first plane hit the first tower.

Only Gwyn couldn’t keep still. Maybe it was that after 1500 years, everything was an economy of scale. She’d been with the nurses captured and held in the Philippines during WWII. She’d seen lynchings in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. She’d been there for the Inquisition and the Terror, the Albigensian Crusade. She’d nursed the wounded of both sides after more than so called holy war. Humanity’s ability to rip itself apart was nothing new. The ways they found to do it just got more inventive.

So she walked. Through the historic cemeteries holding the bones of people she’d known. By Paul Revere’s home, where she’d once bought a small set of silver candlesticks for Nico and Joseph as a present for the winter holidays. Up to the Old North Church and then back into the older neighborhoods. 

She started to make her way to loop around, back to the stupidly ridiculous residence she lived in off Boylston, the one she’d “inherited” from a great aunt with a similar name, when a scream of pain erupted through the silence of the day.

Gwyn took off running, hand already going into her pocket and grabbing the can of mace she carried there. Better that as a first line of defense then the less legal options she had strapped other places.

The man in the gutter was bleeding from his mouth, writhing from the waist up and trying to keep his ribs covered from the steel toed boots the toe men kicking him wore. A bright blue turban lay half unwrapped by his head as he cried out again in fear and pain.

“What the fuck!” Gwyn yelled, running toward them. 

The taller of the two men, bigger than a brick shit house, looked at her, murder in his eyes. “Fucking terrorist! His people did New York!”!

“His people are Sikhs! They aren’t Muslims, you morons. It’s a different religion.” She tried to push in between them, but the larger man shoved her back.

The man moaned, trying to curl in on himself.

The second man drew back to kick him again. Gwyn raised the mace, pulled the pin, and squirted him straight in the face. 

“You fucking bitch!” He screamed, stumbling back and rubbing at his eyes.

“Not the first time I heard that.” She pulled out her phone, dialing 911. “Yeah, I need to report a beating in progress on Prince between LaFayette and Causeway. Victim is a Sikh man in his early to mid-twenties, he needs an ambulance bad.”

“You stupid...” The big man lunged.

Gwyn dropped the mace, grabbed the less than legal taser from her ankle holster, and fired, taking the second man to the ground. “Perpetrators are both white males in their early twenties. They’ve been subdued for now, but please send the police.”

Digging in her purse, Gwyn pulled out two zip ties. Grabbing the maced asshole first, she made quick work of his hands, then took care of his tazed buddy. “Sit there and shut up. Only free legal advice you’re getting today.”

Then she hurried to the man on the ground, taking his hand.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. My name’s Gwynna. Gwynna Thomas. What’s yours?”

“Manvir Arjwal.” The man grunted it, tears streaming down his face. He wheezed with every breath. 

“Okay, Manvir. Help is on the way. I’m gonna stay with you. Is there anyone I can call? Family? A friend?”

At that, he started to cry. “No. No, I came to North America for school. I finished my graduate degree in Canada and was hired by a firm here. My family is all back in India.” He gasped. “I...I can’t feel my legs. I was supposed to start work, but then the towers happened, and they sent us all home for the week. And I can’t feel my legs. They will fire me, and I have no other insurance, and no one here. I...I...I…”

Gwyn’s heart contracted painfully at the panic and loneliness in his voice. She brought a hand up, cupping his cheek. “Manvir, it’s going to be alright. I promise. But I need you to calm down and breathe with me, okay.” Taking the hand she held, she pulled it up and pressed it to her chest above her heart. “Deep breathes now, in and out. Good. Again.”

When his breathing slowed back down from hyperventilation, Gwyn exhaled. 

“You are being kind to me? Why?” Manvir asked, his voice shaking with pain. 

“It’s what my faith asks of me.” She kept her hand on his face, tracing his cheek bone with her thumb. “I am sorry I don’t know any of the prayers for your people. Do you want me to pray one of the prayers of mine?”

“Can’t hurt, right?”

“That’s the spirit.” She closed her eyes, trying to find which one best served her purpose. She shifted Manvir’s hand in her grip, subtly keeping track of his pulse and listening to his breathing. “ _Ave Maria, Gratia plena…”_ The Latin mixed with the sirens in the distance.

Hours later, when Manvir awoke in the hospital, Gwyn was curled up beside his bed in a chair reading a cheap romance novel from the gift shop. On the bedside table stood a bouquet of daisies and a small teddy bear wearing a shirt that said “Get Well Soon.”

“You’re still here?” he muttered, throat dry.

“I said I would be.” She rose, pouring water into the plastic cup with a straw and bringing it to him. 

Once he’d had a drink, his hand shot up, surprised to find his turban in place. “How…?”

“You’ve been out a while. One of the nurses and I used your khanga to comb your hair out and put it back up. And a Dr. Bajwa who is a pediatric surgery resident was kind enough to come do the turban up. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how.”

“Why would you know?” he asked, mystified.

“Friends in college.” She sat back down. “I may also have told them I was your fiancé to get them to let me stay. They had a strict family only policy.”

“You did that...but you barely know me. I don’t understand”

Gwyn shrugged. “You needed the help.” Dropping her eyes to her lap, she sighed. “You have broken ribs, and they broke your spine. The doctors don’t know yet if the paralysis is going to be permanent or not. So you’re going to need a lot of help.”

“I see.” Then Manvir groaned. “My apartment. It’s a third floor walk up. I have barely moved in.”

“We should be able to break your lease on ADA grounds. It’s not ideal, but this isn’t your fault. It was unforeseeable, and breaking it is a reasonable accommodation.”

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Yes, though not usually that kind.” Gwyn kept fiddling with the paperback. “There are two ways we can go about this. We can either try to get your family here on an emergency visa, and I’ll help you find a place.”

He shook his head. “My mother is older and not in good health. She would not do well to uproot like that. And my sisters are married. They have responsibilities to their families.”

“Okay. So option two is going to sound...well, kind of nuts.” 

“My whole world has gone mad, I am not sure you can make it sound worse.”

“My apartment is accessible. At least, I think so, and we can make adjustments if need be.” His mouth dropped open, but Gwyn pressed on. “It’s too big for one person, but it’s an inheritance I am stuck with. Multiple bedrooms. I could use the company, and you’re going to need the help.”

“You don’t even know if I’ll have a job. I may lose my insurance. My visa.”

“At the risk of making it crazier, I could also just marry you.”

“You are utterly mad, aren’t you?” Manvir gaped.

“It would not be a romantic marriage. I’m not interested in...that. Merely one to see you are taken care of. I have a job, which provides insurance to me, and my spouse. No waiting periods, no pre-existing conditions.”

“Why one earth would you do that for a man you don’t know? A man not of your faith?”

“When I was younger, I did something pretty dreadful,” Gwyn said, as honestly as she could for now. “I became a lawyer to help people and try to make up for it. Maybe being in the right place to help you is part of that. I don’t know. And you can say no. I’ll still help you as much as I can.”

Standing, she pulled out her business card, scribbling her cell number on the back. “Let me know what you decide.” Turning, she started for the door.

“Gwynna.”

Stopping, she turned.

“Thank you. For saving my life.”

***

“So when did you tell him about...you know?” Nile asked, curious.

“We’d been married for about three years. I stumbled while carrying a kitchen knife and had it go right into my chest.” Gwyn chuckled wryly. “Stupid, I know. And I broke a perfectly good knife to boot.”

“And how did he take it?” Nicky asked.

“Surprisingly well. He’s the most brilliant man I think I’ve ever met. Can hack anything a computer touches. Hell, some things they don’t. He’d already caught one that something was different about me” Her smile grew wider. “When it came time for me to shed that identity, I didn’t actually divorce him. I wrote a will, left him a lot of money and lovely property, including our apartment together, and then I faked a kayak accident and was lost at sea. And when I went to my bolt hole in my next stop to pick up my ID packet, he had everything ready for me. He takes care of those things for me now. He’s still one of the loves of my life.”

“Even though you left him?” Joe asked, his tone sharp.

“Sometimes you have to go,” Gwyn shot back, snaking her car off the freeway and wending through side streets until she came to a stop and parked. Using her Bluetooth, she called someone named Rio, and in fifteen minutes, five people arrived with two wagons and started unloading gear from the Subaru. Once it was cleared out, Gwyn pulled back upholstery from the floorboard of the Subaru to reveal a small, hidden safe. She opened it, giving Nile the code.

“I suggest you take everything out of your wallets except your current ID and cash. Unless you can disable your data tracking, leave the phones. I need mine for coordination, or I wouldn’t carry it. If we get split up, we will meet back here no later than 1AM.” She turned to Nile, pulling a second car key out of her pants pocket. “Can you hide this in your bra?”

“Ah, skills these two will never understand,” Nile said, pulling her shirt open just enough to make the key disappear. 

“If I am not back by 1:15AM, assume I got arrested. I’ll get bailed out, but it may take a while. Leave the car at the house with the key under the seat and a phone number. I’ll call as soon as I can. Clear?”

“As crystal,” Nile said. Joe and Nicky nodded, though they both wore deep frowns.

She tapped a button on the camera. “Manvir, are we ready to roll tonight?”

A speaker on the side of it crackled to life. “As always, G. Who’re your friends?”

“People I want to keep out of the shot as much as possible. Can you give me a 30 second delay tonight and try to let me know if they keep getting on film?”

“Can do. Story later?”

“Yup.”

“Be safe, G.”

“Be my eyes, Manny.” Gwyn turned to them. “Let’s go.”

Even with the research she’d done, Nile hadn’t been fully prepared for the scope of the protest. As they moved up from the car, noise grew louder. People called out to Gwyn, addressing her as G and waving. She waved back, but carried a tension in her shoulders as they got closer to the noise.

The side street spilled out onto a street with a sign labeled Broadway and a mass of people as far as Nile could see in either direction. Gwyn moved through the crowd easily, apparently trusting them to keep up with her as she stopped and asked questions and checked on people and then moved on. Finally, within view of the front but not at it, she detoured to a tent marked with medic flags.

“Hey Rio,” she said, grinning and shaking hands with a handsome older man with locks pulled back under one bandana and another hanging around his neck. “Did I get everything you needed?”

“I think so. Thank you, Sister G,” he replied, pulling her in for a hug. “Are you on the line tonight?”

“I’m supposed to hang back since I only bailed out a few days ago. Leadership thinks I’m too recognizable.”

He held up one of the acid green braids. “You? No.”

“Not like I had five hours to go get it changed.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just buzz the whole thing.”

“And lose the beauty of it? No. Hang back a few days. Then you can get back to the line.”

“I’ve got my own kit, and my wilderness first responder is current. Can you use me?”

“Always, Sister.” He nodded at Nile and the others. “What about them? You have bodyguards now?”

“Friends. First night. They’ll stick on me until they get the rhythm down.”

Rio turned, handing her four light reflective stickers with red crosses on it. “No guarantees they’ll respect these.”

“Do they ever?” Gwen took them, putting one on each thigh, one on the side of her shirt without the camera and then handed one to Nile. “On my pack?”

Nile took it, pulling the backing free and sticking it on. “You’re good.”

“I’ll check back in later, Rio. Thanks.”

“Be smart out there, Sister G.”

Gwyn turned around, leading them back into the crowd. She didn’t push closer to the front, instead finding them an opening on a street corner and grabbing it. 

From the front, a chant started. “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! KNOW JUSTICE, KNOW PEACE!” 

Nile glanced at Gwyn. When she nodded, Nile took up the chant. In another round, Joe and Nicky joined her. 

“Manvir, what do the streams show?” Gwyn asked to Nile’s right, speaking to a mic on the camera.

A voice crackled just loud enough for Nile to hear over the chant. “Police line is three deep in riot gear with shields. There’s what looks like about a fifteen foot DMZ right now and holding.”

“Anything more than the usual war crimes we need to worry about?”

“Nothing I can see from any vantage I have. Why?”

“Feels like a bad night,” Gwyn muttered darkly. She glanced at Nile, shaking her head a little. “But I guess that’s all of them these days. Thanks, Manny.”

“I’ll shout if I see changes.”

The chant changed, and Nile flowed with it as Gwyn joined in, her voice loud and hoarse, like she’d been shouting for days. Time stretched and contracted as more protesters arrived, the chanting grew louder, and the streets grew fuller. Joe and Nicky’s voices blending with theirs. People kept stopping to greet Gwyn. Nods. Clasped arms. Hugs.

The air crackled with energy, raising the hair on Nile’s arms. Like a storm just before a lightning strike.

The speaker on Gwyn’s camera rig crackled to life.

“G, we’ve got movement on the police line. They’re edging forward.”

“Shit,” Gwyn muttered, then glanced at them. “Get ready. We’re probably all about to get tear gassed.”

“Umbrellas and shields are up. The police are still moving. Protest line is holding.”

The first bangs broke the night before Manvir could say more. Flash bangs and then suddenly smoke started wafting through the air, thick and acrid.

Nile’s eyes burned and stung, her lungs aching. Suddenly, she was back in basic, going through training on this. Remembering the urge to gag and puke.

“Leave your glasses on!” Gwyn yelled. Protesters began to give way, moving back down the street away from the gas. “Bandannas up. Wait for it to mostly clear before you try to wash it out, or you just end up cycling it.”

As people streamed past them, a yell went up. “MEDIC!”

“Fuck.” Gwyn spared them a second’s glance. “Follow me or wait here.”

And then she was gone, pushing forward through the crowd. The three of them didn’t pause, following at a jog. A block up she knelt on the ground with another medic in the fenced off outdoor patio area of a boarded up restaurant. One kid lay on the ground, gasping like a fish pulled from the sea and clutching his left chest while Gwyn listened to him with a stethoscope. Two other boys stared wide eyed. None looked any older than 18. All three of them reminded Nile of her little brother. 

“Gwyn,” Nicky said, edging forward. 

“Not now.” She looked up at the kid’s friends. “You guys know Rio at the medics?”

“Yeah,” one of them stammered. 

“You run. Tell him we need a backboard and we need a coordinated evac near here. Then you get that backboard to me as soon as you can, okay?” Gwyn smiled at them calmly, though Nile could see it didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s going to be okay. But you run fast, got it?”

The kids nodded and took off running.

She turned to the other medic. “Hey Javi. You’ve got what, First Responder?”

“Yeah,” Javi said. The young man, who looked older the Gwyn’s physical appearance, but not much, paled. “They said a flash bang took him right in the chest.”

“We have a name?”

“Levon.”

“Okay.” She turned her focus on the kid, grabbing his hand. “Levon, I’m G. I know this is scary and it hurts. I’m gonna help you, okay. But I need to know, have you ever had surgery? Squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no. Hard squeezes.”

Nile watched in awe as the kid’s eyes locked with Gwyn’s and he gave one hard squeeze.

“Good, Levon. Now, one more question. Are you allergic to morphine?”

Two squeezes. 

“Okay.” Gwyn looked at Nile. “Get in my pack. I need the big red bag at the bottom.”

“Got it.” Nile shifted to where Gwyn’s pack sat on the ground behind her, digging out the bag labelled FIELD SURGERY.

Then Gwyn looked at Javi, her expression going hard as granite. “I am going to do something. You did not see me do it. A doc did it, okay. Someone you didn’t know. You didn’t catch a name. None of this gets back to Rio, Javi. Not ever. You understand me?”

Javi’s eyes went wide as hubcaps, but he nodded. “Okay.”

Looking up at Joe and Nicky, she slid into French, “Bloquez-nous de la vue.”

As she opened the field surgery kit Nile handed her and pulled on gloves, Joe’s eyes widened. “Quand avez-vous étudié pour la dernière fois?”

“Le début des années quatre-vingt au Canada, vous? Bloquez-nous de la vue.” Gwyn shot back. Pulling out the morphine, she shot a healthy dose into Levon’s leg, counting to thirty until he relaxed. Then she turned back to Javi. “Give me your hand. Feel this? He’s cracked a rib and it’s punctured a lung. He’s got a severe tension pneumothorax. We need to clear some of the air that’s building in his chest because it’s putting pressure on his heart. I need you to monitor his vitals while I do that. Can you?”

Javi gaped at her. “Who the fuck are you, G?”

“That’s the million dollar question, Javi. Can you do this, or do you need to trade with one of my friends?”

“I can do it.”

“Good.” She handed him a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope. “Pulse and pressure.”

Digging in the kit, she pulled out a huge needle and began counting the ribs by feel. Grabbing an alcohol swab, she cleaned the site, then slowly inserted the needle into the kid’s side with the plunger down. The boy whimpered, so Nile took his hand and held it tight.

“You’ve got this, Levon. G’s amazing. She knows what to do, and she’s going to make sure you’re okay,” Nile assured him, remembering painfully Dizzy’s voice in her ears fading out as she died her first death. Her voice stayed smoother than Dizzy’s had.

Gwyn murmured to herself, then drew back the plunger slowly. Only air filled the tube of the needle. Nile let out a breath as Levon’s breathing eased.

“Holy fuck,” Javi muttered.

“We need that damn backboard,” Gwyn growled. “This will hold him, but he’s going to need a surgeon to put in a chest tube, and I am not doing that out here.”

“Could you though?” Javi asked, awed.

Gwyn just stared at him hard for a moment.

“Right. I saw nothing. Sorry.”

A few minutes later, the kid’s friends returned with the backboard and the location of the evac that would get them outside the protest lines and to the waiting ambulance. Gwyn scribbled what she’d done on a triage tag, but didn’t sign it, handing it to Javi. “Get him on a bus.”

“G…”

“Go, Javi. And forget my name, got it?”

Once they were gone, Gwyn sat back against the building’s brick wall, her head in her hands. She laughed a little hysterically for a minute. “Shit. Shit, shit, fuckity shit.”

“For the record,” Manvir’s voice cut in, “I cut the feed when I saw the boy down.”

“Thanks,” Gwyn said. “I’m probably burned anyways.”

“I’m sorry,” Manvir’s disembodied voice said. “Do you want me to start working on a new identity? I have a few in reserve.”

She raised her head, her eyes catching on Nile’s. Nicky and Joe stood silently a few feet away. “Not just yet. I have unfinished business first. It may determine what happens next. I love you, Manny.”

“And I you, Gwynna. Come east soon, maybe.”

“Soon. Leave the feed off. I’m going to be treating more people, probably. We’ll keep people off camera.”

“I’ll switch to the street cams. Stay safe.”

Pushing herself back to standing, she pulled the gloves off and gathered everything into a bio-hazard bag to trash it. Then she repacked her bag. “Let’s get something to drink. Then I’ll see where Rio needs me.”

“Gwyn, stai bene?” Nicky asked.

She shook her head. “Neanche un po.” Then she turned and strode back toward the medic station.

It was almost two in the morning when Gwyn pulled up in front of the rental house. The loaner SUV was in the driveway. The motorbike wasn’t. Nile sighed. 

“I’ll come back in the morning. How early do you want me?” Gwyn asked, exhausted and broken after hours of treating people for tear gas exposure, cuts, abrasions, and injuries where they got caught in the panicked crowd.

Nile glanced back at Nicky and Joe, then looked at Gwyn. “You have a go bag in here? Change of clothes?”

Gwyn tensed up. “Why?”

“This place has five bedrooms. We’re using like three of them. You could just crash here tonight and not worry about the drive. If you want.”

Gwyn’s hands tightened on the wheel, and Nile watched the arguments race across her face. And then just as suddenly, they were gone and she slumped in her seat. “I’ve got something under your seat, yeah.”

“Okay then. Pull in behind the other car.”

In the house, Joe and Nicky said a quick good night, heading for the master they’d staked out for privacy sake. Andy had taken the far back bedroom, leaving Nile in the bedroom in the middle of the upper hall between them. The other bedrooms were on the basement level, and she led Gwyn down to them.

“It will be quiet down here. There’s a bathroom if you want to shower. It’s got toiletries provided.” She turned on the lights in the bedroom in the most defensible position. “There’s food in the fridge. Can I get you anything? I think we’ve got tea. I could make you some.”

“Nile.”

Nile stopped, looking at the other woman. 

“Thank you. Could I...could I have a hug?”

Oh. Oh…. Nile stepped forward, opening her arms. And the other woman stepped into them. She was so small compared to the rest of them. Nile felt like the short one these days, next to Andy and Joe and Nicky, and when she thought of it, Booker. But Gwyn, for all her command all day, barely came up to her shoulder. But her arms curled around Nile like she was terrified to let go and a single sob shook her. Nile hung on, one hand coming up to tangle in the sweaty mess of curls and braids. She rocked the two of them silently as the other woman cried the way her own mother used to, just back and forth. 

‘Just cry is out, baby,’ her mom used to say. Nile figured that might make this take a turn for the weird. 

Instead, she just held Gwyn until her tears ran out. When the older woman pulled away, she gave Nile a small, sad smile. “Thank you.”

“That’s what family does.” Nile caught her hand, squeezing it. “My room is right at the top of the stairs. Come wake me if you need anything.”

“I will. Good night, Nile.”

“Good night, Gwyn.”


	2. I Am Done With My Graceless Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW Reminder: This chapter contains references to a sexual assault, though the assault itself occurs off screen. This may be triggering for some readers. If you don't feel you can read this, I'll post a summary in the end notes of action in the chapter without reference.

Nile might’ve become immortal, but she hadn’t shaken the habit of being up at the ass crack of dawn for inspection and PT no matter when she actually hits her bed, so she rose early. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she headed quietly down stairs. The main floor stood deserted. Continuing down to check on Gwyn, she stepped to the basement level and found the bedroom door wide open. The bed stood made. No Gwyn.

No Gwyn in the bathroom. Or the other bedroom on this level.

“Son of a…”

Hurrying back upstairs, Nile tiptoed to the window in the front room, the one looking out over the driveway. Andy’s motorbike was back, parked next to the loaner Subaru. Gwyn’s was gone.

“Bitch.” Anger curled in Nile’s chest. Whatever lay between Gwyn and the others that led her to disappear for two centuries or more, but Nile didn’t have that history. They’d formed a connection last night. Hadn’t they? Or, apparently, it had all been a lie. A con to get Nile’s trust. Get her guard down. Depending on when she’d left, Gwyn could be miles away by now.

Moving with less stealth back to the kitchen, Nile started the coffee pot and considered going for a run to work out her aggression before deciding against it. Andy would likely be up next, and she’d need a situation report. They’d have to decide if they were hunting Gwyn or letting her go. 

When Andy did appear forty five minutes later, Nile was two cups in, the bland generic coffee not enough to make her jittery, but her fingers drumming on the table all the same.

Andy took one look at her and raised an eyebrow. “Late night.”

“Yeah,” Nile replied, considering how to broach the current issue. “Andy…”

“Did Gwyn say what time she’d arrive this morning?”

Well then. “About that.”

Andy froze. “About what?”

“Gwyn stayed here last night. Or we thought she did. It was so late when we got back, so I showed her to one of the downstairs bedrooms.” Nile paused as Andy’s mouth drew into a thin, hard line. “But now she’s gone, and I don’t know where she went. Something happened last night, and she’s pretty sure this alias is burned.”

“And none of you watched her?”

“We didn’t think she’d run last night.”

Andy slammed a hand on the table, rattling Nile’s mug. “MotherFUCKER!”

Nile prided herself on not flinching, but it was a near thing. Before she could say anything, Joe and Nicky appeared at the top of the stairs. “What’s wrong?” Nicky called.

“Gwyn’s gone.”

“What?” Joe muttered, his voice still thick with sleep. “Are you sure?”

“Unless she ended up in bed with you two and someone stole her car, I’m sure,” Nile said. She stood, taking her mug back over to the pot. Her stomach soured at the idea of another cup on an empty stomach, but she expected Andy to command them to suit up and go charging off any minute after Gwyn, or to pack up and head back to the airport and say fuck it. Maybe she could talk her into a drive thru breakfast sandwich.

“Why would she leave?” Nicky asked, legitimately hurt. “She came in last night. She spent the whole night with us.”

“Because apparently leaving is what she’s become good at,” Andy shot back.

“Andy,” Joe warned, his voice more alert. “Stop it.”

Andy growled something in a language Nile couldn’t make out.

Before the argument could continue, the back door off the kitchen creaked open. In seconds, Andy, Nile, and Nicky all had handguns drawn and pointed at the person back-lit in the frame.

“If you shoot me,” Gwyn said wearily, "you’ll have a hell of a time getting the blood off this floor. It’s laminate, not hardwood, and cleaning it fucking suck.”

“Where the hell were you?” Nile snapped.

“Couldn’t sleep. Got up, came up to the kitchen. Saw the coffee was shit and the breakfast food was worse. So I went out to get better.” She stepped in, pushing the door shut with her foot and lifting a shopping bag and a large cardboard carafe from a local cafe. “Thought I’d be back before you woke up, but I got stuck behind a train with a mechanical issue. Didn’t have anyone’s number to call.”

“Oh.” Nile lowered her gun, tucking it back into her waist band. Andy and Nicky did the same. Gwyn moved past them, settling the carafe gently on the counter next to the coffee maker while giving it the side eye. “Sorry.”

Gwyn just shrugged, her expression blank. “Go shower. I’ll cook.”

“Do you need…”

“No.”

Andy and the others melted away. Nile lingered a minute, watching Gwyn unpack ingredients from the bag and mutter softly to herself in a lyrical language she didn’t recognize. Then she disappeared upstairs to get her own stuff and shower.

By the time she came downstairs, the kitchen smelled of rich spices and Nicky and Joe were in Gwyn’s orbit again.

“Chilaquiles?” asked Joe, wandering over to watch Gwyn as she started platting things. The table was already set with silverware and napkins, juice glasses, a salt and pepper shaker, and three different kinds of hot sauce.

“Mmhmm,” Gwyn replied. “Can you get the orange juice out of the fridge for anyone who wants it?”

A strange tension underlay the surface camaraderie between them even without Andy there yet. Gwyn’s smile, fixed and neutral, didn’t meet her eyes. Nicky’s fingers fidgeted on the table. Joe did as Gwyn asked, but didn’t try to steal a taste of the food the way he would if Nicky or Nile were cooking.

Gwyn set plates down one at a time, leaving some in the pan, and then bringing out a small cold bowl of sour cream and another of diced green onion, adding them to the table just as Andy descended the stairs. She looked at the older woman and asked, “Coffee?”

“Black.” Andy’s flat tone met Gwyn’s carefully neutral one, dropping the already cool mood another few degrees.

“Sure.” In a few moments, she set a plate in front of Andy with food and a mug of much better coffee than Nile had made, then took her place at the other end of the table, subtly separated. Alone. Even as the others picked up their utensils, she bowed her head and closed her eyes, mouth moving silently. Praying. Then she lifted a fork and took a bite, eyes still closed, and the years melted away and Nile’s watched her take communion. For a second she looked young and free.

When her eyes opened, she met Nile’s with a smile that went all the way up for the first time, and Nile finally saw the woman in the stories the others had told her. Nile smiled back and nodded.

“Delicious, Gwyn,” Nicky offered, adding just a dash of sour cream to his. “ _Grazie._ ”

“ _Prego_.”

Andy said nothing, pushing her food around her plate between bites as the others ate. When most of their plates were empty and hers was half gone, she looked up. “It’s time, don’t you think?”

The smile slipped from Gwyn’s face like leaves off a tree, leaving it bare for the winter. “Do you want me to clean this up first?”

“No.”

“Very well. Shall we go sit in the living room?”

Andy didn’t reply, just got up and went. Joe and Nicky followed her without another word. Gwyn closed her eyes again, taking a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” Nile asked softly, then kicked herself. Stupid, Corporal Freeman. Obvious and Stupid. 

“Would you mind getting me a glass of water, please, Nile?” Gwyn replied, rising. “I think I’m going to need it.”

“Sure.” Nile grabbed the sour cream and the orange juice, popping them back in the fridge. Then she filled a glass with ice water and followed Gwyn to the living room. Andy sat in one armchair, with Joe and Nicky on the couch next to her and space left for Nile. And in the other armchair, facing them all, Gwyn had curled in on herself. Nile set the water on the end table next to her before taking a seat on the couch.

“So?” Andy said, in a tone she used to interrogate people in missions. 

“I’m going to need you to be more specific,” Gwyn replied, her own voice flat. “If you want me to sit here and account for all of the last two hundred forty one years of my life, I’m afraid we’ll be here for days.”

“For fuck sake,” Andy growled.

Nile took a breath, and then interrupted. “Why did you leave them in the first place? Go to France?”

Whatever question Gwyn expected, it wasn’t that one. She blinked. Then she glanced at Nicky and Joe for a long moment before she turned back to Andy. “How honest do you wish me to be, Andromache?”

“Brutally.”

“Very well.” Gwyn reached for the glass, taking a sip of water. “Do you remember the last time we spoke, before I went to France?”

Andy frowned, her brow furrowing. “It was over a week beforehand. Then we got a letter you were going and you were gone.”

“So, no then.”

“What?”

Gwyn took a deep breath. “I spoke to you two nights before I left.”

***

1779

Gwyn stepped out in the bitter cold New England autumn night, shivering as she shut the saltbox church door behind her. There was no hope of sanding the blood stains from the floors, left by the maimed and dying she’d been helping to nurse for days now. When she’d followed the others into this war, she’d struggled to find her place. Men assumed women like her were too delicate to look on those torn apart on the battlefield. Fools. She’d been a magistra of Salerno, a healer, for lifetimes before their forefathers had been conceived. She’d seen more death in war and plague and illness than they’d see in they’re single short lives.

Of course, that had been when war had been with sword and spear, ax and shield. Not musket and cannon. Not gunpowder. But carnage and death remained the same. Save those you could, ease the suffering of those you couldn’t. 

Gwyn sank down onto the steps for a long moment, bowing her head. Today, she’d split her time between this charnal house of a church and the house conscripted as an officer’s quarters. The greatly revered General Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, had taken ill, and asked for her, charmed with her fluent French in a previous meeting. She prayed for him now, and for all the men in her charge.

The sound of a bottle breaking drew her attention. She rose and made her way toward the camp fires of the troops. A lone figure sat hunched before a small fire away from the others, a bottle raised to their lips. Even in the dark and at this distance, Gwyn knew the soldier.

“Andromache,” she called softly, shivering as she approached. She’d left her cloak on the peg in the church, not intending to be outside this long. The woman clutched a bottle of brandy in one hand, and the glass of three others lay broken around the fireside. “What are you doing?”

“Drinking,” came the slurred answer. 

Gwyn raised an eyebrow. Their bodies metabolized alcohol like so many other things. It wasn’t impossible to get intoxicated, but it took work. Four bottles of brandy wouldn’t be a bad start. Then she squinted at the bottles. “Is that medical brandy?”

“I’m taking it as a cure,” Andromache shot back.

Gwyn’s fists clenched. “Andromache, that brandy is for those who don’t heal as we do. Those who need it so we can dose with medications. We’re already short supplied.”

“Oh, so because my pain won’t kill me, I don’t deserve help?” Andromache rose to her feet, rounding on the smaller woman. “Hardly surprising coming from you.”

“I didn’t say that.” Gwyn glanced around, hoping to see Joseph and Nico, but either they’d blended in at another fire, keeping company with the troops, or more likely they’d slipped away to their tent and solitude. Damn. “Andromache, I know you’re still hurting since we lost…”

“DON’T!” Andromache’s voice rose. Gwyn froze. A few of the other campfires glanced their way for a moment, then returned their attention to their own fires as Andromache’s voice dropped to a hiss. “You don’t get to say her name. You and your precious God. His people did this to her. They destroyed her. And then after all these years and all your so called visions, and you can’t find her? The one time I actually need you to be what you’ve said you are, and you fail.”

Pain lanced through Gwyn’s heart, hot and sharp. More painful than the sudden shock of her first death. It might have been kinder if Andromache had simply pulled the knife at her belt and shoved it through instead. Because she was right. Gwyn had failed. She’d prayed and prayed and prayed for a vision or a sign. Something to lead them to Quỳnh, to let them save her. And all her Lord and her Holy Virgin had been able to say was I’m sorry. 

Gwyn hadn’t gotten there in time. Gwyn couldn’t lead them to Quỳnh afterwards. All she’d been able to do was stay with them and try to keep Andromache from crumbling under the weight of her grief. Tonight, she’d failed again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t do a damn thing.” Andromache sank back to the log she’d been sitting on. “Leave me the fuck alone, Gwyn. I can’t stand to look at you.”

Gwyn turned, striding back to the church without another glance. She checked on her patients there one more time, then took her cloak and walked to the officer’s quarters. 

It was time to leave this war. Her presence was hurting Andromache more than helping, and Gwyn would sooner carve her own heart out than harm any of them. She’d already failed them once. If she could spare Andromache pain, she’d go.

She needed to speak to Gilbert du Motier. She could stay with him until he was healed and then join the embassage to France as a voice for the American experience.

***

“So you’re saying it’s my fault you left?” Andy snapped.

“No,” Gwyn said softly. “I’m saying that it hurt you to have me there. The last thing I wanted was to make that grief worse for you. I hoped if I went away for a while, you’d have your chance to grieve, or I’d get the sign I prayed for. And you didn’t need me. Not really.”

“We did,” Joe argued, not waiting for Andy. His hand rested on Nicky’s knee. “Of course we did. You were family.”

“I was someone who showed up from time to time. You didn’t need me, Joseph.” She turned her eyes to Nicky. “You both had Nico. Before you and he came, destiny nudged me when Andromache and Quỳnh needed a gentler heart, someone to help temper justice with mercy. But you’ve said it yourself. The well of kindness he has is bottomless.”

“You’ve clearly never seen him when someone hurts Joe,” Nile muttered. 

“That is usually still a present threat,” Gwyn replied, a mirthless laugh escaping her. “There’s a difference between that and pure, unholy vengeance.”

“So, what,” Andy demanded. “You leave us a letter, you go off to France, decide to stay when things start taking a revolutionary bent, and then what?”

Nile hadn’t thought Gwyn could shrink into herself further, but she pulled her bare feet up into the chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Yes. I sent you the two more letters from France. I don’t know if you received them.”

“We did,” Nicky offered. “And we found the other notes later, in the cache Andromache kept at the cave.”

“As you say, there was revolutionary sentiment on the rise. Gilbert and his wife were initially leaders of it. I’d settled in a small flat in Paris, working as a midwife and nurse, and for a long time, there was so much hope for a better world. For even greater change than in the colonies.” Gwyn shuddered. “And then it all began to go wrong. Terribly, violently wrong. People began to demand death for all aristocrats. Of those who served the church. The trials began. The guillotines went up.”

“The Terror,” Joe said.

“It was horrifying. People with grudges denouncing neighbors. Blood lust like I hadn’t seen since the Inquisition.” Gwyn reached a shaking hand and took her water, drinking a large gulp for setting it down. “I joined in with a group who loved the idea of liberty, but opposed the slaughter. We helped people go into hiding, and started smuggling them out of the country.”

“What happened?” Nile asked.

“We...we got overly ambitious. We’d done raids on other, smaller jails, provincial ones. No casualties, successful rescues.” Gwyn closed her eyes. “This jail was on the outskirts of Paris. For the plan to work, someone had to go inside, to have the prisoners ready to move when rescue came. I volunteered.”

“Oh, Gwyn,” Nicky whispered.

***

The prison was dank and damp and smelled of mildew. Always of mildew, so strongly it covered the piss and the sweat and the fear of the other sixteen people in the room with her. The Comte du Jardin’s family, with his wife, their teenage daughter, and their two smaller sons. The four Carmelite nuns. The Baron du Ludry, his wife, son, and daughter. And the three priests. Gwyn had lied, claiming her name was Sister Jeanette St. Marie, a lay sister of the Benedictines to get herself thrown in here with them. Had turned herself in. 

That had been two weeks ago. One week longer than rescue had been meant to come. Every person in the cell had been tried and convicted. Every one of them condemned. Gwyn tried not to panic as days continued to slip by without Reynard and Jean-Michel coming for them. Delays happened. No executions had. Maybe the people were seeing reason. Maybe the executions were coming to an end. 

Or maybe the guillotine had grown dull and they merely delayed until the blades could be properly sharpened and the moving parts oiled.

Regardless, she had larger problems. Their jailers enjoyed tormenting their charges. Leaving dead rats in the lavatory bucket. Lacing the food with maggots. Finding excuses and infractions to use the scourge on the adults. Gwyn had been careful after taking a beating to not earn a second, lest they see pristine skins instead of bloody scars.

The most concerning though was young Daphne, the Comte’s daughter. Barely fifteen, the girl glowed with both beauty and innocence, and while her parents and the other adults did their best to keep her out of sight and out of mind of the jailors, their voices carried to where Gwyn sat by the door, discussing vulgar desires. Fraternizing with aristos was forbidden. But who would tell? 

Gwyn fingered the simple string of knots she’d made in lieu of guads, praying in Latin. She missed Joseph and Nicky. And Andromache. She’d sent a last letter just before turning herself in, warning them away, afraid what a guillotine might do even to immortals. But in this moment, the fear in her heart had her longing for them. And if nothing else, one more chance to say goodbye.

The door of the cell cracked open and Monsieur Denard, the most odious of their jailers, stepped in. “Where is the girl? Daphne?”

Oh, merde. Merde, merde, merde.

Gwyn stood, stepping in front of him. “She is a child. What could you want with her?”

“Do you want the scourge again, mademoiselle?”

“If it means you leave that child to her innocence, then yes, I’ll take the scourge again.” Gwyn raised her voice. “What sort of unnatural man looks to take advantage of a child?

The backhand across her face snapped her jaw sideways and blood filled her mouth. Gwyn turned and spit it out. She had his anger focused on her. Good. She needed to keep it there and off Daphne. Whatever it took. She forced herself not to shudder.

“Are you so pathetic, monsieur, that you can get no other woman?”

This time a fist landed in Gwyn’s stomach, leaving her gasping. “You’re some holy virgin, are you not?” he asked, dragging off the mob cap that had kept her hair back. The wild curls fell loose. “One’s tight hole’s as good as another.”

A grip like iron clenched her arm, yanking her toward the open cell door. 

The nuns behind her gasped. The priests began to pray.

Gwyn looked back to see Daphne staring after her wide eyed. She managed to smile at her before she was dragged away down the hall.

Closing her eyes as the man threw her down on a table in the guard room, she thought, Lord, forgive me.

***

“Gwyn,” Nicky said, anguish in his voice. “Gwyn, I’m...I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not done.”

“There is more?” Joe asked, blinking at her.

Gwyn kept her eyes on Andromache, not looking at the others at all. “There is worse.”

***

After, when the guards had dumped her back in the cell, she had lain there and waited for her body to heal itself. The irony that she would return to the state she’d been in before wasn’t lost on her. That any physical proof of her virginity would heal. Only the truth in her heart would be shattered. 

She let herself drift to the place in her dreams where she found her Lord. It had amused her once, how much he’d looked like Yusuf. Same deep olive skin and kind dark eyes. Same wild dark curls. Taller, though. Thinner. He waited there now, this man she’d called Lord and Husband and Christ for a millennium and a half. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Gwynog. Beloved,” he said, his arms coming to hold her, his lips pressed to her forehead. “You have done no wrong. You remain precious to me and always will be, my brave, beautiful one.”

Gwyn wanted to stay in the moment, in the peace of it. To forget the last few hours and just rest. To hide in this place deep inside and forget everything else.

The commotion from the hallway brought her around and she forced herself to roll over and push herself up. 

The cell door opened again and she prepared herself in case they came for Daphne again. If she had to, she’d fight. Claw, scream, whatever it took.

Instead, two men were shoved through the door, staggering forward into the room and stumbling. “New guests,” called the guard. “Don’t worry, it’s just for one more night. You all have a date with Madame la Guillotine tomorrow.”

Gwyn’s heart froze as she took in the bloody, battered faces of Reynard and Jean-Michel. No. No, no, no.

She staggered to her feet, crossing to them. “What has happened?”

“We don’t know.” Reynard spit blood at his feet. “They pulled us from our beds the day before we planned to come and rescue you. They’ve been beating us, demanding to know who else we were working with.”

“We told them nothing,” Jean-Michel added. “Bastards.”

Reynard reached out, his hand cupping her cheek for a moment. “I am sorry, Genvieve. We’ve failed you.”

Gwyn’s mind ran through the possibilities, but came to only one possibility. Betrayal. “No, my friends. You have failed no one. I am so sorry you will pay with your lives for trying to stop this madness.”

Jean-Michel nodded at her. “Did they find it? Your plan of last resort?”

Gwyn shook her head. “Can you hide me from view for a moment?”

“Of course.”

The two men stood, blocking the view of her as she unlaced her gown. Finding the string she’d used to close the lining, she bit it and pulled it until the lining came loose. Small apothecaries packets fell free. A dozen from each side of the gown. Once she had them, she laced the gown back into place.

Then she turned to the men. “Gather the others to the back of the cell where we won’t be overheard.”

Gwyn explained the option. A potion drunk with water. Quick sleep, never to wake. Or the guillotine on the morrow. In the end, the other religious, the nuns and the priests chose to abstain, preferring the martyrdom of the guillotine. Though the reverend fathers took confessions. Jean-Michel and Reynard also chose to face the blade.

“We want to look the bastards in the eye.”

“I...I can’t,” Gwyn said. As tempting as a possible final death might be now, since the moment she’d realized what had brought them to the brink of this disaster, an ice cold fire had burned in her heart. She needed answers first. If the guillotine sang a siren song later, she was sure they’d oblige her.

“You’ve earned a peaceful end,” Jean-Michel said, kissing each of her cheeks. “You have fought well, my friend. It has been an honor.”

“The honor was mine.”

It took little time after that. Gwyn mixed the poison and gave it to the children first, then their parents. After they were laid out gently, eyes closed and still, she hugged Reynard and Jean-Michel one last time. Then she mixed her own dose, six times stronger. She needed to stay dead long enough to make it onto the corpse cart.

The opium and belladonna did it’s work, her body slipping into sleep as she felt her heart slow to a stop.

When she awoke, it was night and she lay in a pile of corpses in a cart at Picpus Cemetery. No one guarded the grisly cargo. If anatomists wanted, well, they had all been condemned. No need to even snatch them. Crawling free, she staggered through the night to her flat and the key she’d hidden weeks before.

Every step through the streets, every step up to the little flat, the cold black flame grew colder and more wicked. It ate at her heart, devouring it. With the door locked safely behind her, she spent time stripping free of her disgusting clothes and washing. When she was clean, she turned to the bottles of wine she’d laid in to celebrate their biggest success yet. One for each of them- her, Reynard, Jean-Michel, and...Emil.

Instead, she stoked the small fire in her hearth into something hotter and took down her largest pot. Into it went the contents of each bottle, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, ground cloves, a dash of pepper, and vanilla bean seeds. An entire cone of sugar followed. As it simmered over the fire on a chain, she took each bottle and lined them up. Then she pulled on leather gloves and pulled open the drawers of her little apothecary’s cabinet. 

The difference between medicine and poison always lay in the dose. The kindness she’d given out that afternoon contained no ingredient that wouldn’t heal in a smaller quantity. But what she searched for now needed only the tiniest amount to kill in agony. There. Aconite. She used a little piece of parchment to tip a fourth of the amount she had on hand into each bottle. More than a sufficiency for her purposes. Then a good funnel to refill each bottle with mulled, spiced wine. A cork, a good shake, a bit of wax to seal them. 

Gwyn stared at them as the sun started to rise. Then she set them into a basket and tucked them under the desk. She dressed in drab clothes, tucked her hair into a clean cap, took the traveler’s pistol and slipped it through her skirt into her pocket. Pulling on a dark cloak, she slid out again into the pre-dawn streets and made her way through the city.

Emil le Hongre lived in a third floor flat above a baker’s and worked as a minor functionary in the government. The perfect double agent to help them learn which prisons might be vulnerable, which families or religious houses were next to be arrested. He’d been scrupulously loyal. Until now. His landlady, Madam Godier, smiled at her. “Mademoiselle, you come by early. Is everything well?”

“Yes, Madam. I had to leave the city for a few weeks to care for a cousin taken ill out near St. Denis. Monsieur le Hongre had offered to pick up my post for me. Do you know if he’s in?”

“He is, but he returned very late.”

“Oh dear. I have so many patients to see.” Gwyn chewed her lip. “He said he would keep it on the little table by his door. Might I borrow your spare key and poke my head in to see if I can see it? I am expecting some very important letters and it might be a few days before I can come back.”

“Well….”

Gwyn’s hand slid into her pocket, past the pistol, and came out with two six denier coins. “For your trouble.”

The woman smiled, digging in her own pocket and slipping out a small iron key. “Just this once.”

“Of course.”

Gwyn made her way up the stairs on soft feet, stopping in front of Emil’s door. The key snicked into the lock, twisting it open with a click. The door opened on well oiled hinges and she stepped into the simple little apartment. The front room held a desk and bookcase, a small table with two chairs, and the little hearth. Through a second door lay the bedroom. 

Gwyn closed the door behind her and locked it. Took her cloak off and draped it on a chair at the table Then she swapped the key for the traveler's pistol. Her steps barely creaked as she crossed the room, coming to stand in the open bedroom door. In the dawn light through the window, Emil looked like a skinny wraith with his flaxen hair and pale skin. She stepped closer to the bed, reaching forward and letting the steel of the gun barrel caress his cheek.

“Time to wake up, Emil.”

The man made a displeased grunt and rubbed a hand against his cheek. Gwyn leaned in, grinding the gun into his cheekbone. 

“Now, Emil.”

His eyes flew open, two pale blue buttons, wide and terrified. “Genvieve!”

“Are you not pleased to see me, Emil?” she asked, tracing the gun from one cheek over his nose to the other. “You seem surprised.”

“How are you…. I mean, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing in your bedroom?” She dragged the gun up, pressing it to his forehead. “Or how am I alive after your betrayal?”

“I did not…”

“Do not lie to me, Emil.” She cocked the gun. “Of course you did. It is the only way that three of us would end up in that prison, and not four. If our work was known, all of us would have been there. Unless you turned on us.”

He gulped, his eyes watering. “Genvieve.”

“How much, Emil? How much were 19 lives worth?”

“You’re alive, Genvieve.”

Gwyn reached down between his legs, gun never moving, and grabbed his balls, squeezing tightly. “That is your argument? Only 18 died?”

He squealed. “Please...you’re hurting me.”

“Not as much as they hurt me in that prison, Emil. You have no idea how much they hurt me,” Gwyn said. “Now. How much did they pay?”

“It...It was supposed to be 200 livre.”

“Supposed to be?”

“After, they gave me 120 quarter Ecu. When I tried to argue, they said traitors should be pleased with what they get.”

Gwyn let out a long, slow breath.

“Are you going to kill me?” Emil squeaked.

“No.”

“No?”

“Get up.” She stepped back, keeping the gun on him. “Now.”

She walked him to the desk. 

“Take paper and pen. Write a note to the guards of the prison, complementing them on a job well done. Say you are sending the accompanying wine with your compliments.”

“What wine?” Emil asked, taking his seat and pulling out a piece of paper and a quill.

“A mulled wine of my making. To thank them for the kindness they showed me.”

“You’re poisoning them?” he gasped.

“That’s not your concern,” Gwyn said, pressing the gun to the back of his head. “Write it and sign it.”

“They’ll come for me.” Despite his protests, he began to scribble words on the page.

“You have a significant amount of money. I suggest you remove yourself with it. Flanders. Austria.” Gwyn stepped back. “I’m giving you your life. Consider it a kindness you don’t deserve.”

He kept writing. Gwyn listened idly to the scratch of pen on paper, the exhaustion of her body recovering from it’s death and a sleepless night brewing poison wine catching up with her. Immortality had never stopped bone deep weariness. Her eyes slid closed for one long moment.

The blade pierced the side of her neck in a sharp sting before a flood of hot iron blood bubbled up into her mouth. Her eyes flew open to find Emil’s shocked ones. “Sorry. I’ve no wish to leave Paris. And you’re meant to be dead.”

You little bastard, Gwyn thought as death slid down over her for the second time in a day and she fell.

Knife wounds lasted far less time then poison. Honestly, if the bastard hadn’t hit her artery, she’d likely have healed before death. Reaching up, she pulled the knife the last few centimetres loose, feeling her skin knit itself together. The cold black fire burned like an out of control inferno now.

Rising, she found Emil faced away from her, sitting at the desk. Her pistol lay to one side, the completed note to the other. The bastard had his money out, fiddling with it, probably wondering how much it would cost him to be rid of her body. She stepped like a hunter in the forest, aware of every stick and snare.

Her fingers sunk into his hair, yanking him backwards and tilting the chair. “Poor choice, Emil.”

He gaped at her. “You’re a demon! A devil!”

“I am,” she said, her head close to his ear. “And the lowest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers.”

Then she drove the knife through his nightshirt and into his heart.

Emil gurgled in her arms as he slowly died. When he stopped breathing, she pulled him carefully from the chair, setting it gently down. Dragging him to align with the stain she'd left on the floor, she yanked the knife free. Blood flowed from the wound. She dipped her fingers in it and looked at the neat white wall. In letters at her own eye level, she scrawled one word.

JUDAS.

Then she went to the table and counted out thirty pieces of his precious silver. Opening his mouth, she crammed nearly all of them inside, leaving two on his eyes. 

Finally, Gwyn wiped the folding knife clean on Emil’s nightshirt, closed it and tucked it away with the pistol, the note, and the rest of the blood money in her pocket. Covering her clothes with her cloak, she let herself out, returned the key, and hurried back to her apartment. 

A boy in the street was glad to take the basket for a coin that would feed his family for a year, the note tucked inside.

Gwyn spent a frantic two hours taking only the things she cared about most in the world and cramming them into a set of saddle bags she’d bought when the Terror first started. A small diptych icon. A small jade carving. An ivory backed mirror. A stamped Franciscan cross necklace. Her medical tools, changes of clothes, money. She changed her clothes again, locked her apartment behind her, and headed for the nearest stable. 

By the noon hour, she and the mare she purchased headed west out of the city, then cut south, making for Spain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foreign language translations:  
> Grazie. = Thank you. (Italian)
> 
> Prego. = You're welcome. (Italian)
> 
> Merde. = Shit. (French)
> 
> Summary-  
> The morning after the protests, Nile wakes to find Gwyn gone. She is hurt and Andy furious, think Gwyn has run out. Then Gwyn returns, having been unable to sleep and run out for food for breakfast and better coffee.
> 
> After everyone has eaten, Andy bitterly demands Gwyn explain herself. Nile asks her to start with why she went to France in the first place, and Gwyn confides a confrontation with a drunken Andy in 1799 who was heartbroken still over Quỳnh. Wanting to spare Andy pain, Gwyn leaves for France, hoping time apart will give Andy some time to heal.
> 
> In France, Gwyn initially works for Republican ideals alongside her friend the Marquis de Lafayette. However, when the French Revolution devolves into the Terror, Gwyn goes to work with a group helping those targeted for execution escape. Flush with initial success, they attempt their biggest raid yet, to free a group of 16 prisoners in a Parisian jail. This requires someone on the inside, so Gwyn gets herself arrested.
> 
> Unfortunately, one member of the group turns traitor. Gwyn purposely puts herself in the way of the guards trying to protect a young girl and is ill treated. Then it becomes clear no rescue is coming and Gwyn is forced into an impossible choice.
> 
> Waking from her death in the aftermath, Gwyn's heart is broken and black with rage, and she takes revenge on those who have wronged her and betrayed the cause.


	3. It's Hard To Dance With The Devil On Your Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened after Paris...

Silence met Gwyn when she stopped talking. She finished the rest of her water, then rose. “I need to use the facilities. Excuse me.”

She walked away and down the stairs to the bathroom that Nile had shown her the night before. A door shut and water began running.

“Holy shit,” Nile finally breathed.

Andromache dropped her head into her hands.

Joe and Nicky’s hands had entwined sometime during the story. Nicky’s head dropped onto Joe’s shoulder. “Il nostro povero Gwyn.”

“Si, amore mio.” Joe squeezed Nicky’s hand tight, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Andromache started to rise. “I should go after…”

Nile shook her head. “She’ll be back. She’s just taking a little time.” She glanced at Joe and Nicky. “Why don’t you guys help me with those plates real quick. And I’ll get her some more water.”

It took twenty minutes before Gwyn returned. Red rimmed her eyes and her hairline was slightly damp. Nile knew the signs of trying to wash away a quick cry. She set a fresh glass of water down next to her seat before retaking her own spot closest to her on the couch. Joe and Nicky joined them.

Gwyn took up the water, taking a long drink. Instead of putting it down this time, she kept it in her hands. “So. That’s what happened in Paris.”

“Why didn’t you come back to us?” Joe asked, leaning toward her.

She turned and looked at him blankly. “I was broken, Joseph.”

“We could have helped you,” Nicky said, his own hand squeezing Joe’s tight. “We could have protected you.”

“I poisoned a dozen men in cold blood.” Gwyn laughed, the sound brutally sharp. “I stabbed a man through the heart. What on earth makes you think I needed you to protect me?”

Nicky recoiled like she’d slapped him. “Gwyn.”

Her face fell, paling as the blood drained from it. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

Her hands shook, the ice in her glass tinkling until she set it down. 

“You think the bad thing that happened to me was what they did to me physically in that prison.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “That hurt me. Deeply. But given time, I’ve healed from that. It’s what they made me do. Emil’s betrayal, the Terror itself...wholesale evil of it all. It made me allow that hurt to happen to me to save it from happening to a child. It made me mix poison for innocent children. Because letting them go to sleep painlessly was a kindness. And not because they were in incurable pain. Because the other choice was to be forced to have their heads chopped off before a jeering crowd and I had failed to save them.”

The four of them remained silent when she paused, taking a great, shuddering breath.

“When I awoke from my first death, I told them to spare my murderer. That I believed he deserved a chance to repent and seek grace.” Gwyn grabbed the water, drinking another gulp. “In almost thirteen hundred years, I never raised my hand in vengeance before that day. I had rarely raised it in defense, only when absolutely necessary to save others. I accepted that the price of that was pain and death for me. But this. I couldn’t abide this. This ripped a wound in my soul. Something black and festering and ugly. And I gave into that darkness. I wasn’t me anymore. So how could I go back to you?”

Nile reached out and slowly took her hand. Maybe Gwyn let her because Nile wasn’t part of her past. Maybe she needed human connection. Maybe her eyes caught on the necklace at Nile’s throat. But she took it. “Did you stop seeing...you know…”

“My Lord and his Holy Mother?” Gwyn smiled sadly. “No. I’ve never stopped seeing them. They’ve never stopped loving me. At first, I think that made it worse.”

“Worse?”

“If they could forgive me that sort of cold blooded murder, that vengeance, what would stop me from doing it again? And again? It took me years to understand that forgiveness.”

Nile squeezed her hand tight. 

“Where did you go?” Andy asked. “After?”

“San Sebastian. I sold my horse and took the first ship I could get back to the Americas.” Gwyn let go of Nile’s hand, picking up her glass again and drinking from it. “It put in at St. Augustine. From there, I made my way overland to Georgia and took another ship up the coast. I left it in New York. Bought another horse and spent a significant amount of money on trade goods. And then I disappeared into the west.”

“Why?” Joe asked. “None of us had ever journeyed there before.”

“Because of that. Because I could remember the old dreams of those we never got to meet before their time ran out,” she said, turning her gaze back to Andromache. “Because I’d spent centuries watching people from Europe to Asia and back tear each other to pieces. I hoped here they might be better.”

“How many times did they kill you?” Andy asked.

Gwyn laughed a little. “Surprisingly few. Many knew at least some English or French, at least among the first peoples I visited. When I made it clear I merely wished to learn about them, and didn’t wish to force my God on them or steal their land, they were kind.” A fond smile stole across her face for a moment. “I’d stay with a people for four or five years, learn their language, learn their healing. And then I’d ask them to introduce me to another group they had trade with. And I’d move on.”

“Did it help?” Nicky asked, his face a mask of concern and care. Nile could see the echoes of the priest he must have been once upon a time.

“Yes.” Gwyn turned to him now, including the others more. “They weren’t perfect. There were squabbles. The various peoples would have land disputes. Raids. Small wars. But the needs of all the people of the group mattered, not what they could do for one group of nobles. Everyone starved or flourished together. And I learned so much. Including...well, how to hide.”

“Hide?” Andy sat up. “What do you mean, hide?”

“I met a healer who told me she sometimes walked in dreams, and that she assumed others did. She taught me a way to think, a sort of meditation. One that allowed me to mask myself from those who would walk my dreams, but allow me to see theirs.” She looked straight at Andy. “This was in maybe 1807 or 1809. It became hard to keep track of the years after a while.”

“Why would you do that? Start hiding. We hadn’t had anyone new in hundreds of years!”

“Just as we hadn’t had anyone new after me in centuries and then fate gave us Yusuf and Nicolo in one day. She's a fickle bitch, your fate.” Gwyn shook her head. “It helped, disappearing as I did. But it didn’t heal everything overnight. I struggled with it. I did penance monthly. I wasn’t ready.”

“Penance?” Nicky said, eyebrows raised. “What kind of penance?” 

Gwyn winced. “I don’t...it was a self-flagellation of a kind, and I don’t think…”

“Brutally honest,” Andy said, her voice hard.

Gwyn sighed. “I would find a deep body of water. And a heavy weight. A rock, usually. I would tie myself to it, canoe out to a depth, and then throw myself in.”

“Santa Madre,” Nicky whispered. “Gwyn.”

Andy stared at her, slack jawed. “You did what?”

“I’d stay down until I couldn’t stand it, praying for guidance. For an answer to where to dive for Quỳnh. For the darkness to leave my heart.” Gwyn kept her eyes on Andy. “Sometimes it was four or five hours, dying. Sometimes it was a few days. Depended on the body of water and the depth. When it would get to be too much, I’d cut myself free with a knife from my boot.”

“How long did you do that?” Andy asked, her tone flat.

“About forty years. When my spirit had quieted enough for me to live with, even if I still had no answers about Quỳnh.”

“You could have died!”

“I did…”

“I mean permanently. Fuck, Gwynog.” Andy’s hand raked through her hair. “It could have been your time any one of those deaths.”

“And it could have been yours any time you stepped into a battle. Or Nicolo’s. Or Yusuf’s.” Gwyn leaned forward. “When our time comes, it comes. I wasn’t chasing death any more than the rest of you.”

“I never...I would never have asked you…” Andy put her face in her hands. “Quỳnh wouldn’t have asked that.”

“It wasn’t about either of you, in the end. None of it was.” Gwyn held her hands out in supplication. “It was about learning to live with myself again.”

Andy sat with her head down for a long time. Gwyn waited for her to look at her again before she continued.

“As settlers started pushing west, I started moving back east. I knew I couldn’t protect the people I’d come to care about, and I didn’t want to risk giving into the rage again. Eventually, I ended up in Quebec. They were used to trappers, so no one thought anything of me selling some of the furs I’d had over the years. From there, I went south into America. That was...1845 or so?”

“Did you just stay in North America the whole time?” Nile asked, fascinated. This was the history her high school education had focused on.

“Through the Civil War.” Gwyn glanced at Andy. Their team leader’s posture had softened, settling back in her chair and listening without the posture like a dog waiting for the command to attack. “I spent the years leading up to it working with the Underground Railroad. Turns out that a delicate woman is far less suspect than a man in many situations. I was able to move many people in border states and help them get north. And then when war broke out, I joined the Union’s nursing corp.”

“We never saw you,” Nicky pointed out. “We fought in that war.”

“Would you have? Were you ever in hospital?” Gwyn smiled softly at him. “They weren’t letting us out onto the front much. “

“Much?” Joe asked, grinning. 

“I didn’t say I was the best at following orders.” Gwyn actually laughed a little. “After, I spent a few years doing medical school again, if only to have the credential and be allowed to do more for patients. Went to England for a little while to help start up the first women's medical school there once I was qualified. Spent a little time in Cymru checking in on my church. And my cache. Reminding myself what my home was like, though the British changed it much over the centuries. Went to Australia and New Zealand after that for a long while. Up through the beginning of the new century.”

“What was there?” Nile asked. 

“Their indigenous people. They were being decimated by our diseases. I hoped I could provide some relief.” Gwyn shook her head sadly. “It was a drop in the bucket, I think. But sometimes, that’s what we can do. And that’s where I finally started getting comfortable with God's forgiveness again.”

“Why there?” Nicky asked. “I’d think the missionary work would have upset you.”

“Wasn’t missionaries. They did upset me. Very much.” A smile spread on her face. “Met a woman named Hannah. She was in one of the last groups transported there as convicts in the 1840s. She’d been a fifteen year old housemaid accused of theft. She ended up working with me as a nurse. Her husband was dead and her children were grown and gone. We sat out under the stars of the outback one night, me looking barely old enough to be a doctor and her in her fifties, and I asked her if she ever felt angry at being transported. And she told me she’d been grateful. That there was grace in it, because it brought her to a place she loved, and a family she loved. It brought her there with me. And she said that grace from God was bigger than her to question.” Gwyn paused, sighing fondly. “A wise woman, Hannah Bright.”

She drank another long sip, finishing her water. “From there, I went to Ireland for a while. Helped with the freedom cause there. Stayed through their war. Plenty of work for skilled medic's hands to do there. And for a cooler head who could talk people down sometimes.”

“Do you need more?” Nicky asked, gesturing to her glass.

“No.” Gwyn set it down. “Let’s see, left and went back to America for much of the 20s. Worked with immigrants and labor unionists, helping them organize. Helped women who were in trouble.” She caught Nile’s widening eyes. “Don’t assume just because some people called me a saint I agree with the Church on everything, Nile. They’ve...chosen some paths.”

“And in all that time, we just, what, kept missing you?” Joe finally asked, his voice a little hard. “Or were you still avoiding us.”

“I still didn’t think you needed me. You had each other, and you had…” Gwyn stopped. “You didn’t seem to miss me.”

“Of course we missed you!” Nicky cried. He sat forward elbows on his knees. “We mourned you as lost, Gwyn. Lost and dead and gone.”

“I’m sorry.” She breathed out slowly. “That wasn’t my intention. I just didn’t want to be a reminder of how I failed.”

“We stopped looking.” Andy’s voice cut through the discussion. “All of us. We all nearly died enough times, nearly lost each other to the sea, and there was no way to find her. Expecting you to magically fix it was never fair, Gwyn. I’m sorry.”

Gwyn met Andy’s gaze. “Me too.”

“After the 20s?” Nile asked gently.

“Europe. Worked for a while trying to get as many people out as I could before...well.” Gwyn grimaced. “Unfortunately I had a remarkably public death in the fall of 1936, and lost my whole network. By then, it was obvious war was coming, so I went back to America, went through nursing training again, and joined the Army Nurse Corps. That was 1938. They stationed me in the Philippines.”

“Oh, shit,” Joe muttered, his eyes gone wide.

Gwyn just sighed. “That’s an understatement.”

****

1944

“How’re you doing, friend?” Gwyn asked as she checked on the skeletal man in the bed in front of her. Around them, the makeshift hospital on the grounds of Santo Tomas University, now an internment camp, creaked and groaned with the sound of people trying to get comfortable and finding only pain.

“I’ve had better wars,” he coughed, his British accent rough and hoarse. “I think I preferred the Huns gassing us in the last one to malaria and starvation.”

“Fair enough,” she said as she carried his thin, watery soup around to him. “I’ve had better wars too.”

“You seem a little young for that, Miss,” the man replied between spoonfuls. “Look young enough to be my daughter.”

“I’ve aged well,” she replied. Looking around, she pulled out some of the dried fish she’d gotten smuggled to her and slowly broke it up in the man’s soup. “This should help though. And it’s Lieutenant.”

“Of course, Lieutenant.” The British pronunciation with it’s unaccountable f in the middle, made her smile. He finished his soup, easing himself back. “You’re truly an angel.”

“Just a nurse, sir. Get some rest.”

Gwyn stepped away, preparing to return the bowl and fetch one for the next patient. 

“Rhys, a word.”

Gwyn looked up to find Josie Nesbit, first lieutenant to her second, watching her from the door of the makeshift ward. Bollocks.

She walked to join the woman, stepping into the hall. “What’s up, Josie?”

“You slipped something in his soup.” It wasn’t a question.

Gwyn squared her shoulders up. “It’s dried fish. One of the guards was willing to get it for me in exchange for a ring I had he liked.”

“Gretchen,” Nesbit sighed, using the name on Gwyn’s enlistment papers. “You know how the Captain feels about the black market.”

“I also know how she feels about losing patients. A little more protein for the really ill could make the difference in them surviving another month. Maybe two.” Gwyn shook her head. “I won’t apologize for that.”

“You’re also giving up your own rations.”

Damn Josie and her observations. “Not all of them. Just when a patient or another nurse needs them more than me.”

“Oh, because you can’t starve to death like the rest of us?”

“Of course I can, Josie. And isn’t this a little pot and kettle. I’ve seen you do the same.”

“Not every day,” Nesbit sighed. “Gretchen, you’re a hell of a nurse. You’re brighter than some of the doctors, and I’d trust you to probably do a surgery in a pinch. But Maude has decreed none of our nurses are dying on her. That includes you.”

“Have you said anything to her?” Gwyn asked.

“No. I wanted to speak to you first rather than trouble her.”

Gwyn considered Nesbit. She was a hell of a nurse herself, and the kind of officer everyone could want to serve under, personable and willing to get into the trenches. But more than that, Josie was discrete. 

Decision made, she set the bowl down. “I need to show you something. And I need you to promise me that it stays between us.”

“I can’t promise that if it has a bearing on how this hospital runs,” Josie replied, frowning.

“It doesn’t. Not directly. Please, Josie. Trust me.”

The woman nodded, then followed Gwyn as she led her back through the ward and around to the storage closet where they kept the supplies. Gwyn used her shift key to open the closet, then waved Nesbit inside. She pulled the door shut behind them, locking it from the inside.

Opening one of the drawers of their limited surgical tools, she pulled out a scalpel. “I need you to not scream, all right. Don’t panic. Just, give me a few minutes.”

“Gretchen, what are you…”

Before Josie could finish the question, Gwyn shoved up her sleeve and pressed the scalpel to her arm, shoving the blade in and drawing up to her elbow. Burning fire followed the wound. Dropping the scalpel, Gwyn hissed softly, “Fuck.”

Josie drew a sharp breath, but kept silent. Army training at it’s finest.

Blood welled up immediately, dripping down her arm as Gwyn held it out, her sleeve pulled back and out of the way to save ruining it. 

As they watched, the blood slowed and then stopped. Then the skin, itching like a hundred fire ants nibbled the edges, knit itself back together until it left nothing. Not wound. No scar. Blood remained, tacky around where the cut had been and puddled on the floor. Gwyn reached for a precious piece of gauze, wiping her arm clean.

“What are you?” Josie whispered, voice caught somewhere between awe and horror.

“Blessed or cursed, depending on who you ask.” Gwyn gave her as gentle of a smile as she could even as her head began to pound a little from the blood loss. She definitely needed a nap after her shift. “Missing meals won’t hurt me, Josie. It’s not the first time. I can die of starvation, and then I’ll just come back.”

“Can you...do you suck blood?”

“I’m not Dracula.” Gwyn laughed a little. “For one, I’m much older. For another, no. I eat and drink and shit just like you do. I just heal. And someday, when it is my time, I’ll die. But I don’t think that’s today or tomorrow or before we get the hell out of here.”

“I see. So not a trick you can impart then?” Her eyes looked wistful, but Gretchen suspected it had less to do with a personal desire for herself and more for those suffering in their wards.

“No matter how much I wish it, no. I’m sorry.”

Josie took another steadying breath, then shook her head. “Don’t be. I won’t tell. But don’t let Maude catch you. I suspect you don’t want to have to repeat this performance. It looked like it still hurt.”

“Like hell.”

“Clean up this blood,” Josie said, back to business. “I’ll take the bowl back and get the next one.”

“Thanks, Josie,” Gwyn said. “I appreciate your discretion.”

Josie just looked at her and shook her head. “I appreciate you being in the fight.” Then she opened the door and let herself out, leaving Gwen with a puddle of her own blood to clean up. Pulling some of the dried fish from her pocket, she broke off a little piece and stuck it in her mouth to suck on. 

Then she found an old rag destined for the burn pile and started mopping up.

****

“We managed to keep more alive than I’d expected,” Gwyn said, her gaze somewhere far off over Andy’s shoulder. “We didn’t lose a single nurse. And I didn’t actually starve to death, though it was a near thing at the end. For all of us.”

This time, Nicky rose, moving to Gwyn’s chair. He knelt before her. “Per favore, posso abbracciarti?” he asked, opening his arms.

Gwyn didn’t reply, just leaned forward and let him take her weight. He held on, her own arms coming around to clutch at his shoulders and her face buried in his neck.

Nile bit her lip, watching them. There had been stories in the last five months. Told over meals and coffee. On walks with Nicky. In art museums with Joe. After sparring with Andy. But never a relentless march through someone’s life like this. Like looking at Copley’s board and hearing it in agonizing detail. The pain. The loss. The small triumphs.

Finally, Gwyn pulled back, setting up. Nicky remained where he was, settling at her feet. She reached out and idly mussed his hair, as if the hug had broken her need to not touch them. 

“I came back to America and shed Gretchen Rhys not long after. I knew nurses at Bataan and Santo Tomas who went on to serve in Korea, but I didn’t have another war in my heart then.” She sighed. “And there was plenty of other work to be done.”

“Civil Rights?” Nile asked.

Gwyn smiled at her. “Yes. And women’s rights. Back then, in so many states, it was legal for a man to beat the shit out of his wife. To control all her finances.” She frowned. “We’ve come a little ways, but not as far as I’d like. I used to help women who couldn’t get away otherwise do it. It was easier then, before records were online. Search death records for someone who would have been near the same age and died as an infant, get a social security card in that person’s name, set them up with a new identity and a new life. I helped waitresses and socialites.”

She paused, closing her eyes. “Went to law school the first time in the early 1960s. Helped on some major civil rights cases. Helped organize. Helped go down and register folks to vote. Helped protest the coming war. Helped protest with the American Indian Movement.” 

“Went back to medical school in the late 1970s. I originally planned to do women’s health work. Then the AIDS crisis hit and I spent 10 years doing palliative care for the dying.” She opened her eyes again. “I used to sneak onto the wards at night when the nurses weren’t paying attention, and I’d take off my gloves to hold people’s hands in the early days, before we knew what caused it. I figured the worst it could do was kill me.”

Nicky reached up for her hand, pulling it down and pressing a kiss to the back of it. “So much death.”

“So many names. So many of them so damn young.” She shook her head. “I had to stop after 10 years. My heart couldn’t take it, and people were starting to notice me. I started over, law school again. Ended up doing public defender work in Boston.”

“Where you met Manny,” Nile added. 

“Yes.” She caught Andy’s eye, the question there. “Joe and Nicky can fill you in.”

“Okay,” Andy conceded.

“I managed almost fifteen years there. Cosmetics and hair dye can let you fake things surprisingly well these days. And people don’t notice your lack of crows feet if you wear glasses.” She laughed. “After that, I spent some time drifting. Did some time with the early Black Lives Matter protests after Ferguson. Spent some time with water protectors in the Dakotas trying to block pipelines.”

“What made you go back to school?” Nile asked.

“I was tired.” Gwyn squeezed Nicky’s hand, leaning forward into him and draping her other around his shoulders, resting her chin on his head. Beside Nile, Joe smiled softly at them. “I’d been...I know it’s not what any of you think of as fighting, but…”

“That doesn’t make it less valid,” Joe declared, straightening up. “It never has, the good you’ve done. Just because you don’t do it at the end of a sword.”

She glanced at Andy, who nodded. 

“I’d been going from cause to cause, stopping only to do the level of training absolutely necessary to fight the next fight. And I just needed to step back again.” Gwyn shrugged. “And when you look as young as I do for as long as I have, why not take advantage? I enjoyed college. It let me be around passionate young people who want to fight for a better world. I needed that.”

“And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here. Or I was. I probably burned this identity last night.” Gwyn let go of Nicky and leaned back. “I don’t regret it. The boy is fine, by the way. Manny hacked the hospital for me this morning to check.”

“Why now?” Nile asked.

Gwyn looked at her, blinking. “Why now what?”

“Why suddenly stop doing the Jedi mind trick that let you hide all these years now? What changed?”

Before Gwyn could answer, Andy simply said, “Merrick.”

Joe and Nicky both flinched. Nile reached a hand for Joe’s, squeezing tight. Gwyn leaned over, hugging Nicky.

“She’s right. I’d seen Sebastien in my dreams for years, and so I’d seen the team. They seemed well. Or as well as could be.” Gwyn paused only long enough to move her gaze from Andy to Nile. “Then I came home not quite six months ago, exhausted from a night out with co-workers before everything here started going to hell. And I went to bed. And I dreamed. Of you, Nile. And through you, of Sebastien’s betrayal. Of what happened.”

“But it took you five months to let me dream back.”

“Because I was afraid to make things worse.” Her eyes left Nile’s, returning to Andy. “I’d been gone so long, I feared it would be seen as another betrayal. And I had no wish to hurt anyone. I agonized over it, I prayed over it.”

“So did your God tell you to open yourself to us again?” Andy asked, a touch of the bitterness back in her voice. 

“No.” She didn’t let go of Nicky, but somehow, Gwyn’s spine still straightened, and Nile suddenly remembered she was the second eldest immortal in the room. “No, a good friend told me he’d rather risk his heart to see an old friend and be turned away than spend forever wondering. So I spent days reminding myself how to be open and let others in. And here you are.”

“If we’re here,” Joe muttered, “chances are Booker’s seen you now too. Maybe he’s coming.”

“As of the two hours I actually slept last night, he’s still in Paris.” She paused. “He doesn’t seem well.”

“Good,” Joe muttered. “He deserves it.”

“He deserves punishment, certainly,” Gwyn replied gently. “And your 100 years is fair.”

Joe blinked. “You saw that?”

“Nile has a very open heart,” Gwyn replied. She turned back to face Nile herself. “That is a compliment, not a criticism.”

“So what will you do now?” Andy asked. 

“I rather figure that depends on you.” Gwyn finally loosened her hands from hugging Nicky. “If you’ve no further use for me, then we say goodbye, and I wish you all the very best.”

“That’s not happening,” Joe said. He turned to Andy. “Tell her that’s not happening.”

“It’s not. My grief wasn’t your fault, Gwyn, and I’m sorry.” Andy herself stood, coming over to lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’ve missed you. A lot. And I’ve only got so much time left. I’d like you to be part of it.”

“Okay.”

Nile let out the silent breath she hadn’t known she was holding. 

“So, I need to go see a friend in Boston. You’re all welcome to tag along, or not. Your choice.” Gwyn’s fingers twitched on the chair arm. “Then I am going to Paris.”

“Why?” Joe asked, hackles immediately rising.

“Because Sebastien isn’t doing well. And because he’d dream of me until he meets me. I assume that you don’t want that to continue if I am to spend time with you.” She glanced between them. “And because his banishment is from the family he knew for the next 100 years. Not from me.”

“Gwyn,” Andy started to argue.

“The goal is to have him come out the other side a functional person you can trust again, isn’t it?” 

“It is,” Nile replied before the others could say anything.

“He betrayed you, and that was wrong. He deserves to be punished.” Gwyn stood slowly, as though the movement pained her a little. “But perhaps if I’d managed to pull myself together sooner, none of it would have happened. I’m not saying I’m going to spend the next one hundred years fixing him. But he does appear to need help that I can provide. So I’ll spend a little time and see if I can help him find a way onto a path back.”

“And then you’ll come back to spend time with us?” Nicky asked, and there was a longing in his voice that made Nile’s heart ache.

“As much as you need me, of course.” She pulled him into another hug, holding on tight. “Not a day went by in all of these years when I did not miss the three of you like a fiber gone from my own heart.” 

Joe shifted past Nile, pulling both of them into his arms. Andy joined them, and for a moment, Nile just watched. 

Then from the middle of the scrum, Gwyn called, “You too, Nile.”

In seconds Joe had pulled her in, making her part of the hug. They stayed that way for a long time until Andy finally pulled away. “So,” she said. “Boston.”

“I need a few days here,” Gwyn said. “I need to wrap up affairs. Then I’ll head there.”

“I’ll call Copley,” Nile offered. “See what we can do for transport.”

“We can help you,” Joe offered Gwyn. “Whatever you need.”

“Thanks,” she said. A soft smile creased her face. “It’s good to be back.”

The others started to scatter. Andy to go lay down for a bit. Joe and Nicky to finish cleaning up the kitchen and to start something for lunch. And Nile to head up to her room for the laptop and her phone to call Copley. 

Gwyn reached out and caught her hand. “Thank you, Nile.”

“For what?” Nile asked, confused.

“I know this life...it's not a choice you’d have made. There’ve been costs.” Gwyn frowned and Nile felt a knot settle in her chest. “But know that you’re loved and wanted. And without you, I’d never have known to come home. You’ve given me a gift I don’t know how to repay. If there’s anything I can do to make things easier for you, please let me know, all right?”

Nile nodded, unsure of her ability to speak. 

Gwyn pulled her into another tight hug before letting her go. “On to our next adventure then. Have you ever been to Boston?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foreign language translations:
> 
> Il nostro povero Gwyn. = Our poor Gwyn. (Italian).
> 
> Si, amore mio. = Yes, my love. (Italian).
> 
> Santa Madre. = Holy Mother. (Italian).
> 
> Per favore, posso abbracciarti? = Please, can I hug you? (Italian).
> 
> Thank you for reading and embracing Gwyn. She'll return soon, and you'll get to meet Manvir in person.

**Author's Note:**

> When I created Gwyn, I wasn't sure if she had died a final death in the Terror or not. But the more I thought about her as a character, the more I wondered what would happen if someone like her had an emotionally black moment that broke her heart, and how she'd deal with it. 
> 
> Ultimately, this story is the answer to that, and explores the ramifications of what she learns about herself, and the choices she made.
> 
> This isn't the end of Gwyn's story. I have at least two more in mind for her. Hopefully people still want to read them after this.
> 
> Chapter 1 Language Switches
> 
> Un momento, Nile. = One moment, Nile. (Italian).
> 
> Santo Dio! - Holy God! (Italian).
> 
> Gwyn, mia sorella.= Gwyn, my sister. (Italian).
> 
> Mi dispiace. = I'm sorry. (Italian).
> 
> No, mi dispiace. Non posso.= No, I'm sorry. I can't. (Italian).
> 
> Ave Maria, Gratia plena. = Hail Mary, full of grace. (Latin).
> 
> Bloquez-nous de la vue. = Block us from view. (French).
> 
> Quand avez-vous étudié pour la dernière fois?= When did you last study? (French).
> 
> Le début des années quatre-vingt au Canada, vous? Bloquez-nous de la vue. = The early eighties in Canada, you? Block us from view. (French).


End file.
